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of the 


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Endowed by Che Dialectic 


and 


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DATE DUE DATE RET’D | DATE DUE DATE RET’D 
apes wa 





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NORTH CAROLINA 
Ade tee be IEL 


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ENDOWED BY THE 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2021 with funding from > 
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 


httos://archive.org/details/operaitsstarsdesOOwagn | 








Maria Jeritza 





© AIME DUPONT. N. Y. 


Aula e Sa Marcella Sembrich 





Lilli Lehmann 





© AIME DUPONT, N. Y. 


Emma Eames 








& 


| cere z 
© MIsHKIN, N. Y. 


Mary Garden 





© uNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD. 


Frieda Hempel 





© aAiME DUPONT, N. Y. 


Lillian Nordica 


OPERA AND ITS STARS 


A DESCRIPTION OF THE MUSIC AND STORIES 

OF THE ENDURING OPERAS AND A SERIES OF 

INTERVIEWS WITH THE WORLD'S FAMOUS 
SOPRANOS 


fh ah ina 
ft / Deans 


By 
MABEL WAGNALLS 


Author of “Miserere,’ “The Rose-bush of a Thousand Years,” “The 
Palace of Danger,” “Letters to Lithopolis, from O. Henry 
to Mabel Wagnalls,’ etc. 





ava 


FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 


1924 


Copyright, 1924, by 
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
[Printed in the United States of America] 
Published, November, 1924 


Copyright Under the Articles of the Copyright Convention 
of the Pan-American Republics and the 
United States, August 11, 1910, 


To 


' ‘ 


-Tuosr Wuo Love Music But Have 








CHAPTER 


I. 


II. 
III. 
IA 

V. 
MI 

VII. 
VIL. 
LX: 

Be 

XI. 


XI. 
XIII. 
XIV. 

DEV 
DOV; 

ONG 
XVIII. 
XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 

ee LD. 
XXII. 
XXIV. 
XXV. 
XXVI. 
XXVIT. 


XXVIII. 


CONTENTS 


FOREWORD . 

GALLI-Curcr—A Sonc- BIRD OF 
NIGHT 

‘““RIGOLETTO”’ 

JerItTzA—A STAR OF THE ‘East 

BATT LOSCA 

Mary GARDEN As I ee ne 

“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE”’ 


A MoRNING CALL ON FRIEDA Hae 


ee VUAGIC PLUTE, 


THE GENIUS OF GERALDINE eraas 


“MADAME BUTTERFLY” 

MeELBA — THE AUSTRALIAN 
GALE 

“LAKME” 

Pee AGLIACCT. 

“ORPHEUS AND enone 

Emma Eames, A QuEEN oF SONG 

“FAUST” 

“WERTHER” 

CALVE AND POM ten 

“CARMEN” 

“HAMLET” 


Littran Norpic Hany Tee Fe apse : 


“‘LOHENGRIN”’ 

TOATDA (Oh, egey 

‘Tar HUGUENOTS” 

An Hour WIth LILLI ee vie ANN 
“Tur FLYING DUTCHMAN” 


MARCELLA SEMBRICH—-THE STAR 


STARS . 
“SEMIRAMIDE” 


THE 


- 110 


ee ALES, 
Mn oA 
. 206 
Pate tel 


NIGHTIN- 


OF 





ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
“Stars of the Opera”—Group of Miniature PAGE 
Portraits st eye a ae Nm ONITS M1 eCe 

Demme curently 
Paeeurcias Gilda im “Rigoletto”? |...) 32 
OE ES Ss AS So, ct OL hy 
Meer rOsCae a SiS cette LOG 
EMCI iy mis) 1 c5).) Seu Ueda Nn harmed voi: PD 
Garden as Mélisande in “‘Pelléas and Mélisande” . 136 
one. Telia n( ot) i an ee Cote Mite ep 
Sembrich as Pamina in ‘““The Magic Flute” Mien 7G) 
eraigme Harrar .. . Ay Ee HE OTe) oe Aus wa eed ie 
Farrar as Madame Buea REL See RN Na Peal Ka 
SPM OM Oe Oe ap Te 
Bamragiamesi +. |. MW re IB GO 4, Ds Sana MP Whe 
Melba as Marguerite in “Faust” PM EO ite) Reyna tL en 
° coupes, (CNG | ON) SS OR Satie sa ot Ren AS AMAR aS CDN RMAC 
Calvé as Carmen . . SHEL MEAN Me AmibeS Git lr AE 
Calvé as Ophelia in “Hamlet” POC NR Lee MNP AL 
Sa OTT CAn ey Mik orcs Malick fees lady ay, Gee 
rincerssteisavins ohenerin: (oc wee e340 
“geist Wi SZ BAI RRR UP RRC asa ok AMER ea es 
COTE 1 oS MV ERE RSIS MAG Te ea Oana eh ares 3 SU Aaa AR Bugs 7a) 
Lehmann as Jsolde in “Tristan and Isolde’. . . 376 
miarcellayoembprich © 2. PRAT Sy kh ef 


Sembrich as Rosina in “The Bathe a Seville of ek a00 


ix 





FOREWORD 


THE normal child who makes early acquaintance with 
Grand Opera will, at the same time, acquire a wide 
knowledge of literature, history, and mythology, and an 
understanding of music in general. What is learned in- 
directly and of one’s own volition always makes the 
deepest impress. A child who hears the “Hamlet” of 
Thomas, soon after seeks out and reads with joy the 
“Hamlet” of Shakespeare. “Orfeo ed Euridice’ turns 
him wonderingly to Greek myths; ‘‘Semiramide”’ and 
“Aida” send him questing to the encyclopedia. ‘The 
Huguenots” starts an interest in French history. All 
the while, too, the language of music becomes clear to 
him: he learns and senses its boundless capacity to 
express and create emotion. | 

Turn him loose later on in the concert hall: sym- 
phonies, sonatas and tone-poems then will not deluge 
him as meaningless torrents of sound. His mind and 
ear and imagination will have become so responsive that 
the whole mighty art is panoramic and plain to him. 
Without learning a note or training a finger, he still finds 
himself at home and not a foreigner in the glorious realm 
of music. He will create his own imagery and see 
visions that reflect the glow of the passing harmonies. 

To him, who thus listens to the noble and the great 
in music, life, even at its worst, can never be wholly . 
drab or depressing. 

My own acquaintance with Grand Opera began early, 
and my enthusiasm and joy have never waned: the won- 


der of it steadily grows. 
XI 


X11 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


Many years ago, an editor-friend, Mr. Edgar S. 
Werner, of Werner's Magazine, marked the keen inter- 
est I showed as I listened to an opera-excerpt at a 
concert. He himself was not thrilled—but I was. He 
wondered why, and he asked me the reason. 

So astonished was he at my ready tale about the opera- 
selection just heard—its story, and the marvelous ade- 
quacy of the music illumining it—that he asked me to 
write out what I had told him. 

This I did; penning my impressions of “Faust” from 
memory, without a glance at the score, for I had heard 
the opera eight or nine times. Mr. Werner promptly 
published the article and contracted with me for twelve 
more—one a month. I worked hard that year, for I 
found myself unfitted to dash off any other opera- 
description without minute study of the score. And the 
more I delved into them the more I found to study. If 
my readers of that year learned as much as [ did, I 
surely was something of a benefactor. 

Asa result of these articles I was asked to interview 
some of the stars. This indeed required courage: I 
was young and very worshipful of genius. Who was I 
that I should walk up to the throne of a Goddess and ask 
any question I chose! Madame Sembrich was the first 
who heeded my request. (She is ever the first to help 
others on their way.) Little she dreamed how trembling 
and adoring was the timid reporter-person who knocked 
at her door. I had once stood for hours in the snow 
at the stage-entrance of the Opera-house in Berlin, late 
at night, just for a glimpse of this great diva as she 
hurried to her carriage. 

After achieving a talk with the supreme Sembrich I 


FOREWORD Xi 


never had difficulty in meeting the other stars—save 
Mary Garden—but that is another story. 

Later, I collected the two series of articles which were 
published in book-form. Since then, whenever I have 
had nothing urgent to do, I have found myself usually 
either attending an operatic performance, or reading 
over the printed score; studying and loving it, and mar- 
veling more and more at the genius and patience that 
created it. 

_So my stories of the Operas, and of the stars that 
sing them, have multiplied and grown into the present 
volume. My knowledge has trailed along—but by no 
means, I fear, kept apace—with the astounding growth 
of Grand Opera in New York. 

To the ultra music-pedant, however, Opera of any 
sort is anathema. Absolute-music is his demand: he 
delights in soul-soarings untethered to earth. But not 
all can at will thus disassociate their dual selves: they 
fail to find in absolute-music—music sans program-title 
or fanciful description—the key that ushers them “be- 
yond the beyond,”’ 

Grand Opera it is that fills the want of giving expres- 
sion to and revealing our encompassing soul-life—that 
palpitant reality, however veiled, which intermingles with, 
and participates in, every thought and action of this 
world. 3 

Grand Opera bestows upon us a temporary clairvoy- 
ance. By means of the unceasing music—music that 
reflects and shares in every emotion or event portrayed— 
we are enabled to perceive, unconsciously to sense, the 
mighty truth that we live and have our being in a higher 
sphere right now—however mundane may appear all 
things about us. In Grand Opera we catch the comple- 


XIV OBICRACATN DST Poy so at 


ment of life, the soul-harmony or discord—the melody 
or tumult—our every thought and act evokes. The 
characters in Grand Opera can never evade or elude the 
glory or damnation of the music they live in; the music 
called forth by their own deeds, thoughts and purposes. 

This symbolism in Grand Opera may not be recog- 
nized or realized by half or a third, or a tenth, of the 
audience. But it is there none the less and its power is 
felt. In the words of James Gibbons Huneker, prose- 
poet, savant and musician: 

“Symbolism, a soft green star, is but a pin-prick in 
the inverted bowl of the night, but it sings like a flame 
in thin glass.” : 

Elsewhere he says: “The world will find wholesome 
reaction in the study of music from its spiritual side; its 
inner life.’ 

And last but most noteworthy is his assertion that: 
“The marvelous intuition of Pythagoras was correct, 
that music 1s the basis of all human development.” 

So in spite of some of the Wise Men of Music; they 
who know the stars but who fail, it seems to me, to recog- 
nize the beneficent and ultimate purpose of their influence 
—in spite of these, I maintain and herald my belief that 
Grand Opera fills a human need that is far and away 
beyond that of giving pleasure. 

I joy, too, in boldly claiming that my views are veri- 
fied by the steady growth of Grand Opera—its hold on 
the people. Kings and kingdoms may fall, wars may 
crumble and devastate empires, but Grand Opera pur- 
sues its own harmonious way: for the Song of Human- 
ity, life’s overtone, as depicted on the lyric stage, must 
and always will be heard. 


corp 


MABEL WAGNALLS. 








AMELITA GALLI-CURCI 


OPERA AND ITS STARS 


CHAPTER eL 


GALLI-CURCI—A SONG-BIRD OF THE NIGHT 


HERE was war over all the land: darkness of 
spirit enveloped the earth: the heart of the 
world was sad—when, all unheralded, a new 

star appeared. Galli-Curci! 

Her name was suddenly on every one’s lips. Such a 
stunning, easy, lilting, yet determined sort of name: you 
liked to speak it just to make it known that you knew 
how Italian vowels and consonants should be spoken. 
It was fun to feel superior to the crowd who called it 
“Cursi.”’ Yes—the name was everywhere, but as yet 
no one had heard her, and there was no fanfare of 
European fame. Whence, then, the great acclaim ?—the 
resounding echo of that strange new name in music? 

At last we discovered her—not the singer—but her 
voice. A shower of “Victor” records had been released 
to scatter beauty and surprize throughout the land. Each 
one of those round disks held within them a glowing 
miracle of brightness, like gleaming raindrops. In their 
magic whirl they mirrored the very stars of heaven, so 
vari-colored, high and clear were the tones of Galli-Curci 


in those records. 


It is probably the first time in history that a great 
1 


2 OPERACAN DIT Sas Ais 


prima donna has become world-famous before making 
her début in the world’s center—which, of course, is 
New York. The little matter of being famous in Italy 
or France or even England no longer counts—to New 
Yorkers. 

Her records began to be talked of like the latest best- 
seller in books. Not to have heard her ‘Caro Nome” 
made you as déclassé as not to have read “Main Street” 
or “This Freedom” And then came news of a début 
in Chicago—a great success, etc. 

But this was all wrong—not at all as it should be. 
Tho the Star of Bethlehem chose to rest above a stable, 
no star of music ever yet had sought the zenith from 
the region of the stock-yards. New York shrugged its 
shoulders—but we still could not ignore those Galli- 
Curci records. I think they sort of infuriated us. That 
Chicago affair rankled. ‘Let her come’’—was the New 
York attitude.—‘“‘We will listen, but if she doesn’t come 
up to those records—!’ As one paper threateningly 
stated—‘All that Galli-Curci has to do is to equal her 
own records!’ No slight requirement this—tho the 
layman might suppose that if she could do it once she 
could do it every time. Oh—the unthinking uninitiate! 
To him who does not know—let me explain. When 
making a record—if one note is a shade sharp, or a 
shade flat; or a soupcon too long; or too brief; or too 
loud or too soft; or too suddenly attacked; or too sud- 
denly let go; or too bright; or too breathy; or—tho the 
tone itself be as desired—if the syllable that goes with 
it is not superlatively enunciated; or if it is so sharply 
sibilated as to mar the attack on the next tone; or if the 
tone, tho of perfect quality, be crescendoed or diminu- 
endoed with not quite your best art; or (getting away 


GALLI-CURCI 3 


from that particular tone) if one of your pauses fails 
to fit perfectly with the accompaniment; or if at one 
point the accompaniment overbalances your voice; or if 
your voice overweighs the accompaniment; or your stac- 
catos are a bit blurred; or your legatos not smooth, or 
if—, or if—but there is no end to these “ifs.” How- 
ever, when they occur in making a record you have an- 
other try, but on the stage there is no come-back. And 
all artists know this—oh, how they know it!—and how 
they think of it just before they step upon the stage! 
No wonder they are nervous, temperamental, ready to 
shriek if a feather blows by, or they encounter the un- 
expected in any form whatever before an important 
appearance. 

So at last Galli-Curci came to conquer the City of 
Dreadful Might. Her advance-fame induced us to fill 
the Lexington Avenue Opera House: to condescend to 
consider the possibility of real art appearing on the 
“East Side’—the Abomination of Desolation to the 
Diamond Horseshoe crowd. We condescended to come, 
and, worse. yet, to listen to the opera “Dinorah!” 
This was asking a good deal of a Wagner-fed audience 
with a decided taste for Rimsky-Korsakoff and Pro- 
koffief. No one had ever heard “Dinorah,” tho of 
course we knew the “Shadow Song’’—all the albums of 
Grand Opera Arias prized in our youth, “Opera Trea- 
sures,’ “Pearls of the Opera,” etc., included this aria. 
But what of the plot? No one knew this. It is not 
fashionable nowadays to study librettos; one goes to 
opera-recitals. 

As for the plot of “Dinorah’—even a Grand-Opera 
recitalist would have trouble making it clear. With your 
utmost endeavor all you can remember of the story after 


4 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


hearing the opera is a vague impression of a moonstruck 
girl with a goat. Yes,—it is a live goat! This goat is 
always at Dinorah’s heels, and she is forever wandering 
over the scenery—over mountains and brooks and things. 
She even wanders up on the roof of the cottage she lives 
in, the goat always following her. (Goats are good 
climbers, that’s why it had to be a goat.) The girl and 
the goat wander around for some time on that sloping, 
precarious roof. I believe this particular perambulation 
is intended to indicate madness. It does! Of course 
she sings all the time she is wandering. She comes off 
the roof at last, and then spying her shadow in the 
moonlight she invites it to dance with her. Now fol- 
lows the famed “Shadow Song’’—*“Shadow Dance,” it is 
sometimes called. About the only time in the opera that 
Dinorah stands still is while singing this aria which con- 
stantly affirms she is blithely dancing. The trouble lies 
in the fact that the music is unmercifully difficult, and 
to be “blithe” in your feet becomes an impossibility when 
a devil’s dance of high notes is going on in your throat. 
Even the goat is non grata in this scene; it is dis- 
creetly called out, or pulled out, of sight. 

So Galli-Curci stood still and alone on the Lexington 
Avenue Opera House stage that memorable night when 
she startled New York with the “Shadow Song” of 
Dinorah. And—ye Gods!—what she did with that 
song! There she stood calm and still as a sibylline 
statue—so effortless was her art that she did not seem 
to be singing at all. Just a nod, a smile, and music 
materialized all about her; the air was full of it, teeming, 
dancing, shot through, swirling with scales and chro- 
matics, with high notes left swinging in the heavens, 
and trills that laughed at you, made merry and echoed 


GALLI-CURCI 5 


back at you, after you thought them long ended and 
done for. 

We were all out of breath when she finished—out of 
breath from the sheer tensity of listening. We supposed 
that she who had sown the whirlwind must be quite 
beyond recall—I mean this literally. Imagine our amaze 
when she came before the curtain and with smiling ease, 
in full glare of the footlights, gave us again the entire 
“Shadow Song’’—that night-bloom among arias, heavy- 
weighted and bowed down with its tropical overgrowth 
of colorature. 

There was no longer any doubt about Galli-Curci: she 
was not only a new star—but a fixed star. It was no 
longer a condescension to trail over to Lexington Ave- 
nue; it was a luxury. It was no uncommon thing to pay 
twenty-five dollars for the privilege of a seat when she 
sang. And this during the war, when our hearts and 
our pocket-books were bleeding. One enraptured poet in 
a glowing sonnet thanked God for sending us this gleam 
of brightness—Galli-Curci—during our days of dark- 
ness. And, most notable of all tributes, other prima 
donnas came to hear her and were not ashamed to tell it. 
Geraldine Farrar generously acclaimed her and said that 
her tone-quality was lovely as the heart of a pansy. 

Galli-Curci, as I have said, became at once a fixed star. 
But however “fixed” these high lights may be in music’s 
firmament, on terra firma, be it known, they flit about 
like will-o’-the-wisps. You think they are here and you 
find they are there. You read of “Dinorah” in New 
York, write a letter the next day and receive answer the 
next week from New Mexico. Not telescopes but tele- 
grams are needed when searching for these stars. 

Finally I captured Galli-Curci at the Hotel Ambassa- 


6 OPERA AND WT SssTARS 


dor. By way of experiment I asked. below stairs for 
Mrs. Homer Samuels—the elevator boys knew at once 
whom I meant. Above, at her apartment, it was Mr. 
Homer Samuels who greeted me at the door. This im- 
parted a new thrill to a seasoned prima-donna inter- 
viewer. For the first time in my life I was to have the 
experience of interviewing a singer and her husband to- 
gether. I had met French maids at such interviews, and 
French poodles, and mothers sometimes—these latter 
always interested and interesting—and other artists have 
been present and other interviewers, but never yet a 
husband. Mr. Samuels, a straightforward, friendly 
voiced plain American, was not present as an inter- 
preter, for Madame Galli-Curci speaks fluent English. 
No, it was clear at once that he was present for no- 
other reason than that he is always present. On the con- 
cert stage he is her accompanist, and off the stage they 
are constantly working together. When preparing new 
roles and studying new music he—thorough musician 
that he is—is always at her side studying with her, con- 
sidering each phrase, advising, encouraging, counseling. 
Mutual work, mutual need of each other’s abilities—there 
you have it!—the secret, the only one, to insure a happy 
marriage. 

Flashlight-photos of Madame were being taken when 
I arrived; I had to wait a few moments in her bedroom. 
My chief impression of this room was a battlement of 
open wardrobe-trunks—their contents bursting forth; an 
upheaval of flaming colors; creations in yellow, orange, 
and rose, with comet-like tails trailing over the parapets ; 
there were whole cloud-banks of chiffon and tossed-up 
tulle. | 

These artists, it would seem, live, breathe, and have 


GALLI-CURCI 7 


their being in full-dress evening garb. Madame had 
sung the night before in Philadelphia, the next night she 
was to appear at the Hippodrome. What a racing, hur- 
ricane life it is: work—work—work, some repose be- 
tween, then again—work—work—work. 

The photographer, having finished his flashing, made 
a formidable exit considerably impeded by his lighting- 
machine, camera, tripod, and plates. Madame herself 
opened the door for him. I mention this to show how 
democratic she has become. Descendants of the Spanish 
nobility (she is this on her mother’s side) do not usually 
open doors for others; they rarely do it for themselves. 

Without any ceremony the diva soon had me seated 
beside her on a sofa in her salon. She is an easy talker; 
almost intuitive. Her first remark was a startling se- 
quence to my recent thoughts: 

“Work is everything in life. To have something 
urgent to do every moment—this is the secret of hap- 
Ape | 

Madame Galli-Curci can say this with the voice of 
authority. She began work at the piano, hard work— 
hours every day—when she was five years of age. Yes 
—they do this in Europe; they know there that art is 
long. Here we wait until the young aspirant is ten years 
old or more'and then we consider the idea of having 
“her take up music,” sweetly unconscious that it is 
already years and years too late. 

But the little Amelita’s parents knew better. They 
were musicians. Her grandparents, too, had pursued the 
art strenuously; had aimed at the stars and attained the 
spotlight. Her grandmother was a prima donna and 
her grandfather directed the orchestra. (I foresee Mr. 
Samuels with his back to the audience. ) 


8 OPERA TAND AS ist AK S 


So our little Signorina—who was born in Milan— 
began hard work at five, and eleven years later made her 
public début as a pianist. This was no school-girl 
graduatiom performance. Indeed, I doubt whether a 
Milanese audience could be induced to listen to a mixed 
program of class-room achievements, for Milan is the 
heart and home of all that is highest in art, religion, and 
music. There historic La Scala guards the art of song 
—a perpetual mother to Grand Opera: there religion is 
upheld by the Duomo—that immortal dream in tender 
stone before whose portals even an atheist feels impelled 
to bow. 

And there Leonardo’s “Last Supper” in dim, hushed 
majesty proclaims what the art of painting has been and 
should be. 

Yes, Milan knows the best, and judges all comers 
accordingly. So it means much to make a successful 
début there. It means much to play there the “Abege”’ 
of Schumann or the great “Fantaisie”? by Chopin: 
both of these were on that first program of Signorina 
Galli—pianist—who had no idea then of ever becoming 
a prima donna in Grand Opera. To be a world-famous 
pianist—that was her dream. But the young débutante 
was a frail little body and the hard steady labor of eight 
hours a day—union-work of hand, heart, and mind— 
was wearing upon her. You, who have not known the 
experience—just try it one day—try sitting eight hours 
at the keyboard, conscientiously striving to improve each 
note that you strike, and to memorize them, too, as you 
go along: try it one day as an experiment, just to learn 
how long—how unendingly long—that last eighth hour 
can be. 

The strain was too great for Signorina Galli in those 


GALLI-CURCI 9 


days—especially the heavy chord-practise and crescendos. 
The realization of this must have been’a hard blow after 
so many years of work. But she was too merry-hearted 
by nature to weep over it. By all the saints, no! no!— 
she sang instead. 

A pretty moral lies here, well applicable to all life. 
She was always singing—and thought nothing of it. 

In Italy, every one sings. You never hear whistling 
on the streets of Milan, but any moment, anywhere, you 
hear singing—glorious singing. In the middle of the 
night, or the middle of the day, you may hear a laborer 
at his work, or returning from it, trolling an opera aria, 
a barcarole or a serenade, like a young Caruso—and he 
thinks nothing of it. So, too, little Amelita was always 
singing—and giving it never a thought. 

Mascagni, an old friend of the family, was the first to 
suggest that she develop her voice: he knew she had the 
other qualifications so necessary to a singing career—a 
knowledge of music, of interpretation, of sight-reading. 
She had also the habit of regular work. Mascagni, you 
may be sure, knew the value of this—the foundation of 
all achievement. 

There is lassitude in the air of Italy: the average 
Italian has more of repose in his nature than of purpose. 
But Amelita Galli had the urge of the artist-instinct— 
a lashing whip that drives one on to a dogged persistent 
endeavor. They all know this. Farrar has taken the 
public into her confidence and splendidly confessed, 
“Others have voices as good as mine—and talent, and 
health, and good looks—but J worked.” 

Other little girls in Milan were good singers; maybe 
one in the next home to Amelita had a natural voice as 
ringing as hers, but that possible rival did not have the 


10 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


inborn ambition—the unfaltering will that bids one re- 
frain from all activities and pleasures that do not con- 
tribute to the cherished art. If you still have any doubts 
as to Galli-Curci’s compelling all-conquering persever- 
ance, listen to this: 

“T still practise at actual tone-placing two hours every 
day of my life. I still am learning and improving— 
always making discoveries, finding new resonance-cham- 
bers for the tone, little shades of difference in the 
timbre. Oh, there is no end to art. If you think you are 
finished’’—she threw up her hands—“then you are fin- 
ished! You are dead!’ 

Again speaking of work, she told of her début in 
Grand Opera two years after she began voice-study. 
Let all incipient prima donnas remember that this was 
thirteen years after her music-study began. 

“Gilda in ‘Rigoletto’ was my first role. I learned the 
part in eight days. I couldn't do that now—or I 
wouldn't do it! When one is young one attempts any- 
thing.” This début in “Rigoletto” took place in Otranto. 

I looked blank—my geography failing me. She kindly 
explained. 

“Otranto is down in the heel of the boot—the lowest 
point in Italy.” 

“She began at the bottom and worked up,’ Mr. Sam- 
uels threw in cheerily. 

I was curious about her recent unconventional up- 
rising out of the West. Musicians of renown, like the 
Magi of old, were wont to come from the East. The 
mystery was made clear. She had been singing in South 
America. | 

We Northerners are prone to forget South America 
except when there is an earthquake down there or the 


GALLI-CURCI iat 


rumble of a revolution. We forget that it is a region of 
bright colors and song-birds, and of some civilizations 
ancient beyond compute. They have music there too— 
opera-houses, where they wildly adore you if you sing 
well, and damn you forever if you don’t. Galli-Curci 
sang well—I take it—for she came forth serene with a 
smile on her face, and a “Victrola” contract in sight. A 
“Victor” agent in that lower hemisphere was so im- 
pressed by her singing that he made a quick leap across 
the equator, came to Camden and told of his find. Thus 
it happened that Galli-Curci became known to us first as 
a disembodied voice on the ‘Victor.’ 

After her record-making stop-over in Camden, she 
came to New York for a brief rest before returning to 
Spain where she soon was to sing. Galli-Curci enjoyed 
those few days of relaxation—spending some of her 
South American money, seeing the sights and being one 
of the crowd. It is not a bad thing sometimes to let 
go of high flights and submerge oneself in the multitude. 
In a crowd sometimes we meet Fate. Destiny dons many 
guises. Galli-Curci on Broadway met an old singing 
teacher she had known in Milan. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Unknown 
and unheralded—this won’t do.” He piloted her at once 
to Campanini, who was then directing Chicago’s opera. 
The rest followed naturally. 

Madame Galli-Curci may once have been frail, but she 
does not look so now. Great singing—or, is it success !— 
always agrees with one. I asked whether her great 
reputation did not add to her nervousness each time she 
appeared. 

“Oh, yes, indeed. I feel the responsibility of it; the 
knowledge that I must come up to the expectation of the 


12 QPERAJAND at StSLTARS 


audience. It is a terrific strain. We must keep very 
calm, but we are only human—and each time we fear 
something may happen to upset us, something mar the 
repose without which we can not do justice to ourselves 
or the composer. [Every artist must work out his own 
method of safeguarding his art. He must think of it 
all the time; it must always come first. Just as a mother 
instinctively guards a child before it is born, so we pre- 
pare for each performance; each one is a creation. We 
must manage somehow to think pleasant thoughts, and 
be peaceful.” 

There’s a creed for you! Who dares to deny that 
Great Art is close kin to Religion? The artist—truly 
great—must captain his own soul. And this isa mastery 
that can not pretentiously be assumed; the cloven foot 
would conspicuously stamp forth. No—the great artist 
‘unconsciously, but always, speaks as one having author- 
ity—the authority that is born of self-mastery. An 
authority that bears with it—strange to say—an atmo- 
sphere of genuine simplicity and absence of self-con- 
sciousness or posing. Of course, I have Madame Galli- 
Curci particularly in mind as I write this. A more 
charming, genial, gentle personality it has never been my 
privilege to meet. Her face is luminous; it lights up, 
and is far more beautiful than her pictures. She has 
youth—one must be near to judge of this—photos can 
deceive; so can the footlights. Her heavy hair is un- 
tinted—her complexion is exquisite, her eyes and smile 
know no art beyond the brightness of a glowing spirit. 

But do not suppose that a singer who has soared to 
the zenith is therefore immune from terrestrial influences 
far from heavenly. The higher one gets the more one 
encounters of subterfuge. Madame Galli-Curci admitted 


GALLI-CURCI esta 


this, but added firmly : “People I don’t like, I don’t think 
about. I will not remember the unpleasant things.” 

I descended from the starry regions of the Hotel Am- 
bassador’s twentieth floor with these parting words still 
singing in my brain. The great Galli-Curci had uncon- 
sciously culled from her own life’s struggle a motto it 
were well to print upon the tablet of one’s heart. 


CHAP TERE 
RIGOR EO, 


VERYONE knows “Rigoletto.” It is difficult to 
iD think of anything in the way of real music that 
out-rivals it in popularity. You might call it a monu- 
mental achievement in broadcasting: Verdi forefathered 
the radio when he wrote it, for its melodies literally 
spread in all directions—were known everywhere at 
once—after the first performance at Venice in 1851. The 
Italians are quick at the trick of catching a new tune and 
speeding it on its way. 

How gracious, how beneficent, how endearing, are the 
immortal melodies that greet us and meet us as we pass 
through the grim canyon of Life: fleet-footed they flit by 
us—yet still tarry with us. Once heeded—we are free to 
dismiss them or recall them at will. Close to our con- 
sciousness unnoticed they may be for years, yet ever they 
hover about us—these gladsome, uplifting, swift-winged 
messengers of Heaven. Who willingly would forego the 
sweet thrill of recognition that livens the heart whenever 
“La Donna é Mobile” is heard? Imagine, if you can, the 
dry dullness of life sans these happy encounters with the 
world’s master melodies—melodies so great that they 
never tire. True music—the genuinely inspired—be it 
classic, romantic or futuristic, never fails at each hearing 
to discover new beauty: true music is eternally young. 

Ask ony one you meet—a passer-by on the street— 
what he knows of “Rigoletto” and he will name at once 
several arias and the quartette: he may even prove his 


statement by whistling or humming them—all this even 
14 


“RIGOLETTO” is 


tho he never has heard the opera. But try asking even a 
confirmed opera-goer about the plot! You will find him 
so familiar with “Rigoletto” that he has never bothered 
to look it up. He will answer you somewhat in this 
fashion—‘Why everyone knows the story of ‘Rigoletto’ 
—the Court Jester—they steal his daughter—she’s the 
one that sings ‘Caro.Nome’—and then in the last act— 
after the quartet she is killed by mistake when Rigoletto 
tries to revenge himself on the Duke—he’s the one, that 
sings ‘La Donna é Mobile.’ ” 

That’s about as much as you will get from the average 
Metropolitan subscriber. Opera-plots are thus handed 
down in the old families from one generation to the next, 
together with the parterre seats and boxes. At least it 
was formerly so—and maybe it was a good idea to avoid 
the specific when preparing the young heir and heiress to 
attend some of these life-dramas. But in this day of 
grace, when the merry flapper forestalls all subtle in- 
formation, make the story clear by all means and per- 
chance the moral—that attaches to all works of great- 
ness—the moral, too, may linger. 

The story of “Rigoletto” is irrefutably a great one— 
Victor Hugo wrote it. “Le Roi s’amuse,” it first was 
called. Edwin Booth, enacting its English version, 
called it “The Fool’s Revenge.” Great passions en- 
visaged by great language must needs live long and be 
acclaimed: but when illumined too by great music, when 
the myriad emotions warring in the human heart—un- 
fathomed still by all the power of words and action— 
when these are further probed by music which charges 
with a clarifying glow all the encompassing atmosphere, 
then even more than length of days rests upon the work 
of genius. 


16 ORERAVAND SS eo Ak 


Come with me now, back through the centuries, with 
Victor Hugo and Verdi. They dreamed it all first: let 
us follow after them, far away it now seems, to the 
white marble splendor of Mantua, a pompous little duke- 
dom, agleam in the Italian sunlight but as prolific of 
profligacy and dark deeds as Ferrara or any other 
romance-region of the history-haloed peninsula. But 
don’t take my word for this; listen, instead, to the pre- 
lude before the curtain rises. Only one page in length 
is this prelude—but the Judgment of Heaven sounds in 
it, and the torment of deepest Hell. Listen well to this 
prelude—it is a miracle of brevity; a lifetime of tragedy 
compressed into a capsule. But it is enough—it gives 
us the magic vision to see through and underneath the 
tinsel merriment and jest depicted on the stage as the 
curtain rises. A ball-room in the ducal palace shimmers 
before us, with other arched corridors and festive halls 
in the rear, all brilliant with candelabras. Sixteenth 
century ladies and courtiers are in the background— 
bowing, dancing, coquetting—a regular Watteau-fan 
effect. 

The music, so recently somber, is suddenly ablaze with 
the gay insolence of youth, of life, of folly. Oh, it is 
superb!—the contrast of that prelude—that glimpse of 
the Infinite—with this deluding dazzle, this dance of the 
molecules. It cuts deep. But we soon forget it, and are 
carried away by the present glamour, the jocund music, 
the faery-scene. The unfolding story soon absorbs us. 

The reigning Duke and one of his followers step to 
the foreground conversing confidentially. 

This debonair Duke—who sings tenor and wears 
white satin—is wholly absorbed in his various illicit 
amours. He is discussing one of these with the courtier 


“RIGOLETTO” 17 


at his elbow—a bit of recitative carried on above the 
rococo involutions of the dance-music in the background 
—music indescribably dainty, of piquant rhythm, and 
very, very pianissimo. 

The opening lines of this recitative dialog between 
the Duke and his sycophant, Borso, are a slam-bang 
tour-de-force on the part of the librettist—grotesquely 
concise, far from poetic, far from human, yet none can 
deny they are terse and telling! Here—bundled and 
hustled together, entwined in ten lines—are all the both- 
ersome but essential facts that precede the action of a 
plot. Note how minutely explanatory is the language of 
a sixteenth century duke when casually talking in a ball- 
room to one of his closest friends—one who presumably 
knows it all anyway: 

Duke, “Soon ’twill be time my adventure were con- 
cluded with yon fair girl of humble antecedents.” 

Borso, “She whom you follow every day to matins?” 

Duke, “For three months it has been my custom so to 
do.4 7% 

Borso, ‘Where is she dwelling?” 

Duke, “A street obscure and distant, where each night 
an unknown man is admitted.” 

Borso, “And does he know that you are now her 
lover?” 

Duke, “He knows not.” 

That “he knows not” matters littl—what does matter 
is that the audience should know: this is the point all- 
important. As for “yon fair girl,” be it understood, she 
is not now present in the flesh: only the grandiloquence 
of Grand Opera, and the Duke’s mental vision, make it 
possible to designate her as “yon.” But the librettist 
has done his part: he has flung his facts over the foot- 


18 OPERAVAINDIET Sas Diss 


lights—let the audience perceive them or leave them. 
Right now you may as well know one other fact of 
which the Duke himself is ignorant. This girl, who 
dwells in an “obscure street’ and who has “antecedents 
equally vague,” is the Court Jester’s daughter; the “un- 
known man” whom the ducal spies have seen admitted at 
night, is the girl’s own father. Rigoletto—the hunchback, 
the fool, the wit, the reprobate, ever seconding his master 
in all his sub-rosa depravities—has kept one shrine in 
his heart unsoiled: his only child, his beautiful Gilda, 
he has guarded all her life, and kept her very existence 
unknown to the tainted company encircling the ducal 
throne. 

A few more words between the Duke and Borso, as 
they observe the dancers, reveal the fact that one of the 
ladies present, the Countess Ceprano, is also a close 
favorite of the Duke. His incautious admiration plainly 
worded, prompts Borso to warn him of the lady’s hus- 
band standing near. A bas les maris!—they are a 
nuisance: the Duke shrugs his shoulders and by way of 
diversion sings a heart-to-heart aria to himself, as it 
were: whatever stray husbands may be hovering near— 
they certainly are not supposed to be hearing it. He 
sings of fair ladies—“they all are the same to me: if 
this one requites my love to-day I long for another to- 
morrow.’ But regardless of stage husbands—whether 
they hear it or not—all the world knows by heart this 
sparkling ariette: a rainbow bubble of imsouciance. That 
music-missionary of the world—the Italian organ-grinder 
—has not paced our streets in vain. 

After this light-hearted touch-and-go song the Duke 
addresses the Countess Ceprano with burning asides, of 
momentary seriousness, while the rest of the company 


7 RIGOLE PLEO? 19 


dance the minuet. The instrumental music at this point 
is furnished by a group of court players in the back- 
ground—a tiny band of stringed instruments. They 
quaintly intone the delicate, fine-spun dance-suites of the 
period: the minuet, the sarabande, the bourrée and 
gavotte. During their undertone téte-d-téte, which care- 
fully follows in musical phrase the grace and melody of 
the accompanying minuet, the Countess warns her lover, 
the Duke, of her husband’s aroused suspicions. But 
presently, when the minuet ceases, the careless lady 
accepts the Duke’s proffered arm and they make their 
exit together while the furious husband watches them, 
and while Rigoletto, the Jester, just entered, heart- 
lessly watches him. 

“What disturbs my good lord?” he mercilessly asks in 
leering tones that the others may hear and join in with 
his laugh. The Couwnt—too interested in his wife and the 
Duke to resent the fool’s insult—impatiently shrugs his 
shoulder and follows after the ruthless pair. Rigoletto 
laughs mockingly, while the dance-music still goes on. 

Rigoletto—gray-haired ’neath his fool’s cap, and de- 
formed ’neath his motley—has grown old in court in- 
famy: his sole business there, he considers, is to keep 
the company merry, no matter who winces at his jibes, 
and also to keep himself in good grace with the Duke. 

After his broad-grinned laugh at the Count, in which 
the others have joined, he, too, goes out—follows after 
the promising tragedy—stuff for new jests—there is 
always fun to be found in the antics of discomforted 
husbands. 

And still the dance goes on. It is now the lace-ruffled 
powder-puffed perigourdine that steps its tip-toeing way 


20 OPERA (ANDES Si ARS 


on the stage and touches off on the instruments a sway- 
ing cobweb of miniature music. 

A change of rhythm, which always means a change 
of mood, brings on a recurrence of the first high- 
stepping, purse-proud, princely flair of ball-room music; 
regnant again in the orchestra. But like all gilded gaiety 
it merely serves as a barrage to blind us to the lurking 
anguish of life. Back of the panting waltz theme, a bit 
of recitative on the stage carries forward the brewing 
tragedy, which is as yet mostly a matter of laughter— 
heartless—unthinking laughter: tragedy very often be- 
gins with a laugh. Murulla, another one of the Duke’s 
go-betweens, has entered in a high state of hilarity. 
He has discovered that Rigoletto—none other—is the 
incognito who visits the Duke’s latest inamorata at night. 
Not knowing him to be a father, they suppose him a 
lover. Rigoletto, a lover! The Hunchback playing the 
role of Adonis! What drollery! We, too, almost laugh, 
for our senses are dulled to the pity of it by the pounding 
disdain of that dance music. 

The Duke and Rigoletto re-enter, shortly followed 
by the still scowling husband. How to get rid of 
this shadow is, for the moment, the Duke’s upper- 
most quandary. Jigoletto, always agrin, suggests poison, 
exile, or decapitation. Suspecting the drift of their 
colloquy—especially the asides of the Jester which are 
always a combination of venom and frolic—the Count is 
close to the point of skewering him on his sword. But 
the Duke hushes over the contretemps, gives the Fool a 
good scolding and bids the others not to mind what he 
says. The Count, however, far from mollified, still rages 
at the Jester and asks the others to join him in com- 
passing the fool’s downfall. They join him to the extent 


NG Ole Feta aye 21 


of agreeing that of late Rigoletto has been far too auda- 
cious and daring in his jokes. The Cownt’s threat of 
vengeance promises a tang of adventure that appeals to 
them: they echo his threat and enjoy Rigoletto’s discom- 
fiture. Even the Duke plainly tells him that the wrath 
he has stirred up may fall back upon him. There is 
prophecy in these words, tho the Duke does not know it 
—does not even mean them as he utters them. Few 
words at court are seriously spoken: they are mere empty 
sounds tossed lightly about—while ever and always the 
music of the dance goes on. Give heed to naught else— 
listen only to it—a precept this which the Duke assidu- 
ously lives up to. “Pleasure calls us,” he loudly pro- 
claims, and now even the dancers come forward and 
join in with the hilarious chorus his Highness has 
started. 

“Pleasure calls us. Beauty beckons. Seize the moments 
while they last.” 
» Uproariously they ‘‘seize” both the moment and the 
music, then suddenly—hard upon their merriment-—a 
disturbing voice outside causes a listening hush, with the 
last loud chord of the chorus left hanging in the air. 

“T will see him!—hold, villain! Let me pass—” or 
something to that effect, cries the voice outside, and then 
there enters at back of stage another enraged nobleman: 
not a husband this time, but a father. The courtiers 
all know him, and know his plaint: it is the venerable 
Count Monterone—come to hurl maledictions upon the 
Duke’s long-accustomed head. This is by no means the 
first time that an angry father has denounced him as the 
cause of his daughter’s undoing, tho never before—we 
infer—has one dared to break in upon a festal occasion 


in the palace. 


22 OPHRAVAND HUDS a5 Laks 


The old man assails the Duke with a storm of words 
—a tornado of reckless wrath. 

Rigoletto—always alert for a chance to make fun— 
tells the Duke to let him act as his substitute. He 
promptly struts forward like his master and gives mock- 
ing audience to the aged courtier. 

Why forever assail me with thy daughter's down- 
fall? But, I am gracious, good Seignor, I pardon thy 
treason.” | 

The old man—more outraged than ever—again apos- 
trophizes the Duke. “You rob me first of my daughter’s 
honor, then permit your buffoon to deride me. Do more 
if you will, bid your headsman to kill me, still I swear 
I will follow you—my mangled form shall haunt you.” 
He is terribly in earnest—this white-haired magnifico - 
garbed in black velvet. The music, too, is black and 
ominous: it is recitative with a vengeance—the ven- 
geance sounding loud in the orchestra. When it comes 
to seething dark-hued emotions, the canny composer 
always calls into use his full equipment of chromatics 
and tremolos—especially the latter—with a judicious use 
of sharply contrasted fortes and pianissimos. In the 
hands of a master, this time-worn paraphernalia becomes 
blood-curdling in effect. Verdi here gives to the whole 
orchestra a palpitant uprising of chromatic octaves, hur- 
ried, breathless, crashing, and then—sudden collapse 
among the instruments: there follows a faint tremolo on 
the strings, above which the old man’s recitative words 
are heard—still thundering futile threats at the Duke. 
Three times the orchestra mounts up in a towering billow 
of chromatics that climax and break upon the unyielding 
shore of the outraged father’s denunciations. However 
futile his words may seem to the gay assemblage in that 


TRIGOLE DH Ona is: 23 


gleaming hall, they have in them a carrying sting, un- 
pleasant to hear. 

The Duke finally cries, “Enough!” and orders his 
guard to arrest the intruder. They do this, but not be- 
fore the fearless grandee has flamed upon Rigoletto— 
well-known underling in all the Duke’s nefarious in- 
trigues. 

“Thou Viper! Thou vile Buffoon!’ 

The old man trembles in mighty wrath as he hurls 
upon the Jester all the fury of a ‘‘father’s curse.” There 
is sudden fortissimo, both in orchestra and voice, as he 
thunders forth the malevolent words: 

“Be thou accursed!” 

Three fff’s are the composer’s directions at this 
point, then—a moment later—three times pianissimo is 
the sign that marks the bated consternation of the listen- 
ing courtiers—especially Rigoletto. He would hide his 
dismay with a smile—but he can not: he cowers instead, 
for the curse of a father strikes home—he thinks of his 
own daughter: he shrinks from that curse: he cringes. 

Sixteenth century curses, you see, were taken very 
seriously. Not only the recipient, but every hearer is for 
the moment horrified. Those now on the stage unani- 
mously bid the old man begone with his audacious revil- 
ings: but they do not shout their resentment—they sing 
it very softly—sotto voce: in fact we half suspect that 
each one is making the sign of the cross. These Man- 
tuan courtiers are frankly frightened: we imagine them 
feeling as did the crowd in the Temple that was told, two 
‘thousand years ago, how to begin throwing stones. 

But qualms of conscience are seldom long-lasting, tho 

we do find here four full creeping pages of it, musically 
} speaking. But the instruments are sparingly used: very 


24 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


few are needed to sound, low down in the orchestra, the 
whisperings of the still small voice. By the time we turn 
to the fifth page both chorus and orchestra have mounted 
higher and are well on the way to a comforting con- 
science-stilling crescendo. Brasses, basses and bassoons, 
to say nothing of wood-wind and horns, now fall into 
line to augment the splendid uprise of sound. The 
chorus touches climax, the trumpets top it off and then— 
as is usual in Grand Opera, when all shout together loud 
and long and the trumpets join in, then—like Jericho's 
walls the curtain falls. 

When next it rises we are shown an intricate setting. 
The hour is midnight, but a gracious moon reveals a 
walled garden on the left; in the center a street touching 
the wall, and on the right a glimpse of Count Ceprano’s | 
palace. The enclosed garden, huddles about the door- 
way of a balconied cottage which is the guarded home of 
Rigoletto’s cherished daughter. 

There is dark-hued music in the orchestra—a rumble 
of contra-basses ’neath tentative chords that are soft and 
shrouded. Rigoletto enters, depressed and _ troubled. 
Black thoughts enwrap him and transform his usual 
bearing even more than does the dark cloak and hat he 
wears. He delays unlocking the gate. Where has gone 
his wonted alacrity, his restless eagerness to see again 
the star of his life, his one delight, his precious only 
child? There is an instinct still stronger than love, tho 
it may be a very part of it—born from it: fear, a name- 
less fear, this it is that bows Rigoletto. The nearer he 
comes to his daughter the greater grows his despondency. 

‘“‘A father’s curse he laid upon me!” 

Neither Montrone nor any one else knew him to be a 
father: what awful chance directed that particular curse 


“RIGOLETTO” 28 


to be flung at him? Thus he muses 1n well-phrased 
barytone recitative. 

But any sort of a curse, I take it, must have occasioned 
unpleasant reveries to one who walked alone on the 
streets of Mantua at midnight, any month or year of the 
sixteenth century. Strange characters lurked about those 
gloomy corners. A figure, black-draped like himself, fur- 
tively accosts Rigoletto. The down-cast Jester, suppos- 
ing him a beggar, says he has nothing to give. That this 
was no beggar Rigoletto might easily have known had 
he but heeded the orchestra. But so it is in life, our 
ears are ever dull to the subtle voices, mood-revealing, all 
about us, everywhere. The radio has lately given an ink- 
fing of the encompassing sounds we fail to cognate. In 
Grand Opera the unpausing orchestra pierces the veil of 
concealment ; thought-forces, heart-throbs unworded, are 
made audible to those who have an ear to hear. But 
Rigoletto soon learns from the man’s words that he is 
neither beggar nor robber. Such puny trades he spurns: 
he deals in sword-thrusts: will guarantee to make way 
with your worst enemy—for a price. A professional 
murderer peddling his wares! A common vocation this 
seems to have been in midnight Mantua of long ago. 

Rigoletto, disgusted but diverted, asks casually what 
it costs “to slay a nobleman.” This idle question, and 
succeeding ones, would never have been asked had he 
but heard aright the soft, insinuating, muted melody now 
permeating the perfumed air of this moon-gleaming 
Italian night. That melody bodes no good: it is far too 
saccharine: it lacks the husky devil-may-care, kill-or-be- 
killed, sort of music one would expect from a perfectly 
frank, pay-as-you-go murderer. There is a silkiness to 
- that melody that means more than murder: the smile of 


26 OPERAVANDEATSISTARS 


Satan lurks in it. Rigoletto heartily loathes this medi- 
eval night-prowling adept with poignard and sword: he 
calls him in asides, ‘You demon!” “‘You monster !’— 
even while he continues to question. He does not realize 
that his own evil genius is luring him on to deeds un- 
dreamed of at the moment. Beware, have a care of 
the stray words you hear in answer to idle curiosity: they 
lodge in your brain, they multiply: they may finally pos- 
sess you body and soul. 

All this Rigoletto, had he listened carefully and been 
attuned to understand—all this he might have gleamed 
from the sibilant snakiness of that too-sweet melody in 
the orchestra. 

So with half-way attention—half-way interest—he 
learns a good deal from the chummy assassin: he learns 
his name, learns too that this particular corner is his 
special tramping-ground: soliciting murderers divided 
off territory in those days much as beggars do now. 
Rigoletto learns further some details of his methods: a 
pleasing sister, when needs be, serves as decoy to the 
prospective victim, leading him to a cottage in the sub- 
urbs: there the swordsman does his work—expertly and 
almost painlessly: this gentle villain shows pride of pro- 
fession in every reference to his swordsmanship. 

Rigoletto finally bids him begone after clearly catching 
the fellows last words, “You may need me some day— 
don’t forget me!” 

The doleful court Jester watches the night-bird slink 
away, then grimly recognizes a kinship between them. 

“He slays in the dark: I stab with my tongue.” 

But Fate—cruel Fate—is the actual target of all the 
Jester’s venom, All his life he has been kicking, stab- 
bing, pounding wild, aimless blows at Fate—the unheed- 


“RIGOLETTO” 27 


ing Goddess who fashioned him a monster and doomed 
him to a perpetual smile—mock-merriment and buffoon- 
ery—to enliven a profligate court: Fate—who denies him 
even the dignity of sorrow. 

But ever and again, even in the midst of this lone out- 
burst of rage, Iigoletto recalls that ‘“Father’s curse” 
flung at him. It is always sounded with the same reci- 
tative notes, the same rhythm, and the same dull orches- 
tral chord emphasizing the final word. 

“He laid upon me a father’s curse.” 

Rigoletto shivers at the memory, tries to forget it, calls 
himself a fool indeed so to cringe at an old man’s words. 

Enough of dark musings. He resolutely unlocks the 
gate to the garden. 

As he enters this sanctum, the music of the orchestra 
brightens. Oh, how it brightens! No need of our seeing 
the emerging moon, the blossoming shrubs, the glad rush 
of Gilda from the house as she welcomes her father—it 
is all plainly pictured in the music. 

I marvel always, how the feel, the glow, the peace of 
a flowering garden can be carried to us by music. Note 
the music in “Faust,” just before Siebel sings the 
“Flower Song,”’ or the second act of “Lucia di Lammer- 
moor,” or “Romeo et Juliet,” or, best of all—the Elysian 
Fields in “Orfeo ed Euridice,” there is flower-music for 
you—the breath of peace and all the beatitudes—the 
edenic beauty, the gentle repose, of a simple well-loved 
garden. Here, too, in Verdi’s opera there is a gladden- 
ing sense of breeze-blown blossoms. As Rigoletto enters 
the garden he forgets his fears, his deformity, his ab- 
horred position in the palace. His precious Gilda loves 
him, cares not for his appearance, and knows not his 
profession. To all the world he is a fool; only to her he 


28 OPERAVANDETMS Svs 


is Father: God-given word this is to Rigoletto—it is all 
of Heaven. 

Joyous as love, care-free as the morn, is the soft, 
buoyant melody now arising in the orchestra. But let 
none ever dream of a Paradise garden sans the intruding 
serpent. Gilda, woman-like, asks questions—why is she 
always secluded? What is her father’s name? Why 
does he not trust her and confide in her? 

Rigoletto replies that he has naught but sorrows to 
confide: it were useless to tell her of these. We learn 
that she has not long been in Mantua—she has recently 
come from a convent. The stream of questions, still 
unquelled, continues: Gilda asks of her mother. At once 
a mist falls over the music, the gladness ceases, all is 
drenched in the minor as Rigoletto sings of the one. 
blessed episode of his life—the brief companionship with 
one who saw not that he was hideous, penniless, an out- 
cast. He lost her, but another angel, his Gilda, was left 
in her place. 

Sweetly sorry is Gilda now for the questions she has 
asked: she grieves with her father. They sing together 
a duet you will ever remember, for never have father 
and child been more poignantly attuned in music. 
Through five pages of perfect harmony and musical 
peace these two sing divinely in the moonlight. 

Then Gilda forgets all about it and begins again with 
her recitative questions. She wishes to know of their 
kindred, their country and their friends. Rigoletto 
affirms that for kindred, friends, the world, the universe 
—he looks to her alone. Again she joins him in a rhap- 
sodical outburst of joy—joy in the fact that she means 
so much to him. 

Then the little pest—for such she now is—starts on 


“RIGOLETTO” 20 


another tack: the rhythm and tone suddenly change in 
the orchestra as well as in her voice. The phrases are 
very simple now, they are coaxing and demure, and inno- 
cent! A three-year-old cooing a Paternoster could not 
sound more guileless than Gilda when she asks why she 
always is kept secluded, and please won’t he allow her 
to-day to go forth for a walk in the town? 

Instant terror seizes Rigoletto: he knows full well how 
his enemies—the gay Lotharios of the Court—would 
deem it a joyous joke to abduct the fool’s daughter did 
they but discover that he had one. In sharp alarm he 
asks her, “Have you ever disobeyed me?—ever walked 
abroad, save to early mass?” With a straight face she 
answers, “‘No,’—the little minx! She is not telling all: 
we learn this from her troubled asides. 

So alarmed is Rigoletto that he summons the duenna 
Giovanna: a God-fearing creature she looks to be: he 
has hired her to watch over his daughter. In reply to 
his questions she assures him that the door to the terrace 
is always locked—always locked. She repeats this much 
too often, but Rigoletto’s fears are quieted, and the music 
softly modulates from troubled minor to harmonious 
major as he charges her, with all the tender fervor of a 
father’s prayers, to guard well this flower of innocence 
entrusted to her care. The music here is so heart- 
moving in its tender appeal that we forget to note just 
how the over-wise Giovanna takes it. As for Gilda— 
she undoubtedly thinks her father old-fashioned and 
over-cautious, but certain it is that she loves him. She 
echos his song in high sweet tones assuring him that no 
harm can befall her. Lovely as a lullaby in its gentle 
rhythm, peaceful as the quiet garden and the all-caressing 
moon, is the music of this most dulcet duo. It is som- 


30 OPERA AND Mia Ss DARKS 


nolent in its beauty—this exquisite song between father 
and child. There is in it the hush of hallowed memories 
—some sweet reminder of our dearest dreams: Sing on 
forever !—our soothed hearts whisper. 

But it is in just such moments throughout all life that 
Fate—dark-browed—draws near and tragedy peers upon 
us. tigoletto hears a sound at the gate. “Some one is 
there!’ he cries. Every sort of alarm breaks out in the 
orchestra; agitato, forte, and fortissimo. /igoletto, 
now fool indeed—as we all are when fear-haunted— 
opens wide the gate and rushes out into the street to 
throttle the marauder, whoever he may be. The prowler 
chances to be none other than the Duke himself—cloaked 
and incognito of course. He very deftly slips through 
the opened gate behind Rigoletto’s back and, once inside - 
the garden, uses a tree-trunk for concealment after 
hastily, but with lordly gesture, flinging a purse to the 
perfidious Giovanna. 

None of this pantomime is seen by Gilda and we must 
clear her name to the extent of explaining that she is no 
party to this back-door intrigue. Her disobedience has 
gone no further than a frank flirtation with the handsome 
stranger on her way to church. 

Rigoletto, failing to find the rover, soon returns. He 
again questions Giovanna, who again lies convincingly, 
and again he bids her never to open the gate to anyone. 
The Duke in the background hears and observes with 
keen interest.- Much surprized and, we suspect, with 
gloating amusement he recognizes Jigoletto. Still 
greater his surprize when he gleans that the girl is the 
Jesters daughter: a fact that possibly adds to the zest of 
the affair. 

With his fears somewhat appeased, Rigoletto now pre- 


PRD Rey at 


pares to leave. He sings “farewell my child” and then 
resumes his song of caution about “guarding this flower 
of innocence.” Gilda, too, repeats her theme—‘no evil 
can befall me.” The two voices alternate in brief phrases 
of rondo effect until at the last, they join harmony— 
more and more pianissimo. 

This recurrence, after the recent agitato, of their en- 
dearing tender duet, already rooted in our hearts, is 
welcome as bloom after blight, as the forgiveness that 
follows confession. Believe me, I do not exaggerate the 
beaming beauty, the simple splendor of this duet: it is 
charged with truth—deep as earth, and high as heaven— 
this musical expression of a father’s love. It sounds a 
harmony so unfaltering and reposeful—one feels that 
Verdi has herein achieved a dim reflection of the love 
of God. 

Gilda accompanies her father to the gate, sees it 
closed behind him, and then feels guilty over the false- 
hood she has told. Giovanna, wise in her ways, argues 
the folly of telling her father of the youth who follows 
her to church. What harm in that? He seems a gentle- 
man of high bearing: he may be a nobleman—who 
knows? 

It does not take much to start Gilda upon dreams of 
love. The orchestra leads on—it is always the fore- 
casting shadow or sunbeam in life’s path as depicted in 
Grand Opera. We now hear the rhythm softly change 
to the commonest one in the world: not the so-called 
“common time’ of the text-books, but the three-beat 
swing of waltz-rhythm—the rhythm that more than all 
others echoes the heart’s throb, the real pulse of life and 
its longings. But altho this potent rhythm wields its 
unerring beat in the bass, the melody—the proclaiming 


32 OPERA AND ITS. STARS 


herald of Gilda’s emotions—has not the smooth-flowing 
legato curve of the placid, conventional waltz-theme. 
The phrases are hesitant, broken, uncertain: you hear 
a maiden alarmed at her own thoughts, but impelled none 
the less to word them to the night-breeze, the flowers, 
the moon—her love for the unknown stranger. “He 
need not be rich or noble, if only he will love me.” 

Gilda is startled by an answering voice—not Guo- 
vanna’s. The Duke has waved her off the scene and 
stepped forward in her place. He now echoes Gilda’s 
song: “He loves thee! I love thee!’ He proceeds to 
make all manner of poetic declarations of devotion. 

But the music has changed its rhythm and its tune. 
Gilda has not been raised in a convent for nothing. She 
knows what is expected of a young girl, the proper pro- 
cedure under the circumstances, at least at first. She 
calls for Giovanna—not so that you could hear her very 
far—but she does call, and she does act really dismayed 
at finding the duenna gone. The more she realizes that 
Giovanna does not hear—and does not intend to hear— 
the more she indulges in dramatics. 

“Alone and friendless! Heaven protect me!” 

Of course she could have run into the house: but in 
times of great danger one can not see everything—not 
even a house. In spite of her terrible plight—‘‘alone and 
unprotected”—Gilda finds the situation not unbearable, 
especially when she discovers the intruder to be her hand- 
some stranger: the delightful disturber of her matinal 
devotions. 

“°Tis thou! What brought thee here?” 

We suspect that she recognized him from the first, but 
young girls never miss a chance to play the hapless 
heroine. 





PHOTOGRAPH BY VICTOR GEORG , 


GALLI-Curct AS “GILpa” IN “RIGOLETTO”’ 


ee 


(aie 
vars z 





“RIGOLETTO” 33 


“Begone from me!’ This is genuine heroism, I as- 
sure you, for it is the last thing in the world Gilda wishes 
to happen. It is very poor acting, however; she sings 
the words in the mildest kind of tones: neither the or- 

chestra nor the Duke pay the least attention to them. 
_ He goes on singing of love, and as for Gilda—she just 
goes on listening, and you really can’t blame her now 
for the all-wise orchestra has resumed that delirious 
waltz-rhythm, and there is nothing hesitant or uncertain 
about the Duke’s love-song. So judge not too harshly 
this close-guarded child of the Jester who suddenly finds 
all her dreams not only realized but added unto. In 
that humble garden, now enchanted, she hears sweet age- 
old words addressed her by a veritable cavalier in velvet 
cloak and plumed hat. Truly all the Fates and Verdi, 
Victor Hugo, too, and a high-priced tenor voice—to say 
nothing of the moon—have combined to charm her into 
ecstacy. Do not blame her for believing all she hears, 
for giving her heart wholly and singing with him—out- 
doing him in a nightingale glory of tonal rapture. Don’t 
blame her: blame Verdi. Words alone she might have 
withstood, but combined’ with such music! As well 
expect a bark canoe to turn of itself and float upstream 
as expect a girl’s heart to turn adamant to the trans- 
porting power of that melody. 

When the song and final duet are hushed into silence, 
the lovers still murmur softly the eternal sweet nothings 
of love. Eternal these are, in more senses than one, to 
the Duke who counts that day lost that does not hear 
them uttered by his facile lips into some fair ear. But 
Gilda never doubts that she “alone enthralls him”: he 
has told her so. She asks his name. He gives her the 
first one he can think of, which chances to be “Walter 


34 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


Maldé.”” No great splendor nor originality to this, but 
Gilda finds it all but sublime. 

Outside the garden wall we now see two cloaked 
figures, stealthily approaching: they are Borso and Count 
Ceprano. There is a deep plot abrew. We see Borso 
designate the gate and wall of the garden: “Here it is,” 
he announces. He knows it as the place of Rigoletto’s 
secret rendezvous: but neither Borso nor any other 
courtier, save the Duke, knows as yet that the incognita 
who receives Rigoletto’s nightly visits is his own 
daughter. 

Borso and Ceprano, after making sure of the location, 
go off-stage again as cautiously as they entered. But 
Giovanna, alert enough in guarding her charge from all 
save the Duke—hears the outsiders and she now rushes 
upon the lovers giving the alarm. Gilda is quickly 
frightened, fearing it may be her father returned. 

She joins Giovanna in urging her visitor to go. He 
accedes, but—this being a perfectly normal Grand 
Opera of the old school—he pauses to sing with her, 
fortissimo, vivacissimo and real agitato, again and again. 
“We part now! We part now! Farewell!” They keep 
this up energetically through four pages, and finally tear 
themselves asunder on a vociferous high B. The Duke 
rushes out, guided by Giovanna, through the house in- 
stead of risking the garden gate. 

So Gilda is left alone—yet not alone, for love is still 
with her. The familiar garden and friendly flowers sur- 
round her—yet the world is all new: only the moon 
which in truth sails on unheeding and with heartless 
haste, only the moon, seems abiding and unmoved. En- 
wrapt in its glory, a-tremble with joy, Gilda repeats aloud 
the dear name—the “Caro Nome’—Walter Maldé. The 


FRIGOLH GTO? 35 


music of the orchestra is drenched and dripping with 
moonlight: the instruments barely breathe: only the 
flute—half awake—tip-toes a gleaming pathway in soft 
staccatos from earth to heaven, from tones low down to 
highest treble. Again and again we dreamily follow that 
dim upward way of the flute, faint and ethereal, all dolce 
and morendo. Then a pause, a deep breath, a shift of 
the harmony, and a new key-world breaks upon us: a 
new song. How often in the Book of Books that term 
is used, proclaimed as a power, as a thing of mystery— 
a new song! This great song of Gilda’s is ever new: it 
is the “Caro Nome.” 

We are inclined to associate, musically, a languid 
legato with memories of love: but not so in this New 
Song. Almost staccato is Gilda’s shy, half-frightened 
admission to herself of the great love she feels: a maid- 
enly semi-voce clings to the whole aria. But altho 
subdued in point of tone-volume, Gilda’s love inspires 
her to prodigies of achievement in the way of colorature. 
Trills and grace-notes bespangle this song, like dewdrops 
in the moonlight. There are daring portamentos bridg- 
ing chasm-like intervals that only a sleep-walker, a love- 
maddened girl, or a Galli-Curci should attempt. 

At last fair Gilda, white-robed and a-dream, remem- 
bers time and place, and bethinks her to light a candle. 
Still singing softly and clinging fondly to the “Caro 
Nome,” she slowly mounts the garden stairway to a ter- 
race above and enters her room. A last, lingering high 
note is sung off-stage, while the candle’s gleam plainly 
indicates, to all whom it may concern, the location of her 
sleeping-chamber. 

A vital matter this is to the group of plotters now 
outside the garden wall who have met together, under 


36 OPERA PANDA Sis ais 


Ceprano’s guidance, during the finale of Guilda’s song. 

There is conspiracy-music now in the orchestra: you 
can always recognize this—stealthy chords, a nervous 
rhythm, and sudden contrasts of forte and pianissimo. 

The courtiers, turned jesters, have come to steal 
Rigoletto’s supposed inamorata. It is a joke of their 
own devising: the Duke knows nothing of it. Indeed 
their purpose is not merely to outwit Rigoletto, but to 
surprize the Duke as well: they intend taking Gilda to 
the palace. 

But the conspirators are somewhat disconcerted when 
presently Rigoletto, prompted by a father’s fears and 
premonitions, unexpectedly returns to keep guard at 
Gilda’s gate. While feeling his way about, he accidentally 
bumps into Borso—whereupon he asks belligerently: 
“Who are you?” 

This bit of by-play is painstakingly devised by the li- 
brettist to indicate how extremely dark the street is—a 
matter which must somehow be made clear as the audi- 
ence would otherwise be in darkness, metaphorically— 
since the stage-lighting is of course sufficient to see all 
the action. 

The meeting with Rigoletto is upsetting to their plans, 
but luckily Marullo has an inspiration. He tells Rigo- 
letto they have come to steal Ceprano’s wife. The Jester 
not wholly convinced, inquires: 

“How will you enter his palace?” 

Marullo, a Machiavellian genius, asks Ceprano, in a 
quick aside, for his key. This is handed to Rigoletto 
who, feeling the Ceprano crest upon it, is convinced 
and relieved, until he thinks to ask why they are on the 
wrong side of the street—the Ceprano palace is opposite. 
Marullo, still the arch-plotter, says they are just ready 


“RIGOLETTO” 37 


to cross over: everything is arranged, but he, Rigoletto, 
must wear a mask like the rest of them. Marullo ties a 
handkerchief over the Jester’s face, making it thick and 
firm over his eyes and ears, and at the same time deftly 
turning him around so that he no longer knows which 
side of the street he is on. They then induce him to hold 
a ladder placed, as he supposes, beneath the Countess 
Cepranos window. Some of them mount the ladder, 
promising soon to return with the lady. 

The out-witted Jester little dreams they are breaking 
into his own home, by climbing over the garden wall, 
and then opening the gate from the inside. The invaders 
hurry across the terrace into Gildas room. They 
presently bear her out, bound and blindfolded, and carry 
her through the gate into the street and hence away— 
leaving Rigoletto still holding the ladder and puzzled at 
their long delay. 

This being a regulation Grand Opera, and the moment 
one of tensity and caution, there must needs be at this 
point a pause in the action to allow for a chorus: a 
pianissimo but vigorous composition, six pages long, be- 
ginning, “Zitti! Zitti!’ If you don’t know what “Zitti” 
means you are not a faithful Grand-Opera follower. It 
means “Hush! Hush!’ and is usually followed by the 
words: “Let no one hear us.” 

This is sung by the group of conspirators who stand 
guard in the street while their comrades have entered to 
capture Gilda. When these emerge with their victim the 
entire group scurries away, unaware that a designing 
Providence in the form of Victor Hugo has allowed 
Gilda’s scarf to slip from her and be left lying at the gate. 

The music now mounts to fortissimo. /tigoletto at 
last suspicious, tears the bandage from his eyes, sees the 


38 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


open garden, rushes up to Gilda’s room—out again, finds 
her scarf, tries to call for help—but is voiceless and all 
a-tremble. He falls to the ground unable to co-ordinate 
thought and speech beyond the pitiful memory of that 
curse: “‘A father cursed me!’ 

The third act brings us back to the palace—the next 
morning. 

The music is agitato: so is the Duke, who enters 
alone. The matter of his agitation is neither national 
nor political: he is troubled about Gilda: not with qualms 
of conscience but with fear that he has lost her. We 
learn that, after leaving her so hastily the night before, 
he returned later but received no answer to his knock 
from the well-paid Giovanna. All was dark and deserted. 
He now fears that the sounds they heard at the gate— 
and which hastened his departure—held some evil im-_ 
port for Gilda. The kidnapping of fair maidens was a 
common sport in those days. 

“Where have they borne her? My fairest angel!’— 
he cries in chagrin: as the archdemon perhaps does when 
a soul is saved. So successfully can sin metamorphose 
the conscience it will eventually give comfort and ap- 
plause when it should be upbraiding. By recognizing 
this fact we are enabled to understand the ensuing 
“adagio cantabile’ sweetly sung by the Duke. He be- 
lieves he truly loves the fair Gilda: he fears she is 
weeping now, and terrified. He tells himself he would 
give his life’s blood to rescue her. He feels real noble 
and sentimental, and sings to himself—and to the ap- 
plause of his comfortable conscience—the tenderest sort 
of a love-song: all this in plain sight of the fine portrait 
of his wife, the Duchess, which hangs on the wall for 
the audience to see. The poor Duke is almost weeping 


“RIGOLETTO” 39 


with pity for himself at having lost the Jester’s lovely 
daughter. 

While in the midst of his dolcissimo sorrows, the 
whole group of courtiers hurry in, athrill and elated 
with the news of their adventure; their joke on the 
Jester; their capture of “his sweetheart,’ and his own 
blindfolded participation in it all. They do not know 
that she is his daughter, nor does the Duke at once per- 
ceive that the “sweetheart” they refer to, and his loved 
Gilda are the same. Good-humoredly he listens to the 
animated telling of their piquante escapade. It is all 
in Verdi's finest vein of chorus tunefulness: with abrupt 
fortissimos and a swinging, pounding rhythm. 

As the merry tale goes on the Duke discerns, from 
their description of the house and its location, that they 
were the marauders heard at the gate when he was in- 
gloriously obliged to flee: his mourned-for Gilda is the 
maid they have captured. Now, indeed, his interest is 
keen), 

“Where have you taken her?’ he eagerly asks. 

“We brought her here,” they reply unabashed. 

We infer the proceeding is by no means unusual: but 
the Duke’s manner, it seems, somewhat varies from his 
custom. He turns away from them all to hide his relief 
and joy—and to sing another ebullient love-song. This 
also is an aside—three full pages—sung to himself, to 
the audience and to his still applauding conscience. The 
courtiers, in the meantime, chorus an aside of their own; 
they are surprized at the Duke’s evident emotion. 

After several fine climaxes with exultant high notes, 
the Duke hastens out through a door at the back, evi- 
dently knowing well in which room to seek the captured 


maid. 


40 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


There now follows a scene that is, perhaps, the greatest 
ever composed for barytone. It demands both great 
singing and great acting. 

We hear a sharp change in the music: above har- 
monies of doleful minor, there plays an impish, half- 
hearted little theme plainly meaning to be merry but too 
weighted by the undertone of minor to succeed. We 
hear Rigoletto off-stage singing a ghastly “la-la” to the 
mock-merry theme. He comes at the appointed hour of 
duty—in his motley and fool’s-cap—to fulfill his rdle of 
fun-maker in the hated halls of his profligate master. It 
is the saddest “la-la,” the hollowest gay tune, the pen 
of composer ever dotted down, or the voice of man ever 
pretended to sing. 

Verdi’s muse wields a flaming sword in this scene. 
Not with pen but with forks of fire flashed across the 
sky one imagines this scene to have been first conceived. 

Rigoletto enters still sounding his fool-song, and still 
shaking his fool’s bells in a skeleton-like jingle. He 
faces the courtiers with an attempt at indifference: he 
even dances a few steps, but his feet are lead, his eyes 
all tears, and his voice little more than a sob. 

The courtiers greet him with jeering pleasantry. 
“What news this morning, Rigoletto?” 

He tries to answer with his wonted insolence: “None; 
save that you all are more tedious than usual. *Twas a 
clever joke you played last night.” 

He resumes his pitiful pretense of a song, and his 
halting pas-seul: spying everywhere as he does so, listen- 
ing keenly, and hoping against hope for some clue or 
whisper that will enlighten him as to Gilda’s where- 
abouts. No use questioning the callous courtiers: their 
hard, white smiles, like gleaming icicles, freeze the very 


“RIGOLETTO” 41 


air about him. But he does find voice to ask with seem- 
ing casualness: “Is the Duke still sleeping ?” 

“Yes, still sleeping,’ they answer with true diabolism. 

But the devil gets a jolt just now, for a page from the 
Duchess enters requesting for her Highness an inter- 
view with the Duke. 

The Duchess, like the court fool, receives only lies 
from her husband’s followers: the page, too, is told the 
Duke sleeps. But even the youngest page may know 
more than my lord’s lady. This page, it chances, had 
already this very morning met the Duke in the corridor 
—and he says so. 

“He has gone hunting,” they now announce lightly. 

“Impossible!” cries the page, a stubborn little piece, 
out of place it would seem in a palace. “Without escort, 
and at this hour! Impossible!” 

Rigoletto, listening horrified, recognizes only too well 
the subterfuges, the lies, he himself more than once has 
used in concealing his master’s misdemeanors. Mad- 
dened to despair he suddenly cries out: “She is here !— 
the maid you stole last night from my house. Here! 
—in that roon—with the Duke!” 

They still fling at him ghoulish jeers. “You must find 
you another sweetheart.” 

He does not even hear them: in frenzied fear he pleads 
and entreats with a mighty sob, a crashing cry that soars 
and sinks. | 

“My daughter! Give me back my daughter!” 

They echo this word in amaze, and are indeed momen- 
tarily dismayed. But none of them forgets the game, or 
their precious prestige at court. When Rigoletto rushes 
madly at the door to break in, they one and all stand 
guard to prevent him. He turns on them, denounces 


42 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


and curses them, as the old man Monterone had done in 
the first act. Rigoletto, too, is an old man: his fool’s 
cap has fallen off and we see his gray head. 

“Vile rabble! Detested race of curs!” his batterment 
of flung words is accompanied by mounting music in the 
orchestra that verily storms with piled up thunder the 
iron gates of perdition. 

Rigoletto again rushes at the barred door, struggles 
single-handed with the entire group of grinning syco- 
phants who again effectually prevent him from breaking 
through. Bound with misery, realizing the futility of 
his efforts—their banded determination against him— 
he again pleads and prays to them to save his daughter: 
appeals to them singly—to Marullo, to Borso, then to all 
of them. Oh, it is a mighty prayer for pity—a final, 
ultimate prayer: “My child, my Gilda! Give her again 
to me!’ The melody, so tearfully sung by Rigoletto, is 
duplicated by the mellow-toned oboe, a third beneath the 
voice-part supporting, as it were, like a friend at court, 
this last frail effort of the pleader. Together they cry 
out their prayer in broad rhythmic phrases. 

The music of moaning agony is most often in the 
minor—it has already been used effectively in this scene 
—but Verdi daringly and impressively, at the most 
poignant climax of grief, lets the harmonies in utmost 
pianissimo droop and swoon into the major. The very 
firmness and decisiveness of this mode imparts an abso- 
lute hopelessness that rends the heart. 

As one who suddenly sees the whole universe as naught 
but a monstrous vacuum, /tigoletto gives one last cry to 
the unpitying emptiness about him: “Gilda! my Gilda!” 
His voice rings out unaccompanied save by the breaking 
surge of his own sobs. 


oni GOUh yO, 43 


But in God’s own way such prayers are answered, and 
the wise creator of tales follows the supreme Creator’s 
laws. Gulda in the nearby room hears her father’s last 
reckless outcry. She answers him, and rushes to him: 
flings wide the door, and falls into his arms, weeping, 
bowed, dishonored. At first, the distracted Rigoletto is 
so overjoyed at sight of her he believes it all was a jest, 
that the courtiers were merely fooling him—hiding her 
just to alarm him. But Gilda’s bowed head and terrified 
confession in reply to his questions, causes him to reel 
in horror. The music dissolves into a ghastly monotone 
—the same deadly tone that sounded Monterone’s curse. 

In that same reiterated tone, dull and chalk-like, Rigo- 
letto asks—nay—commands the courtiers to leave him: 
even the Duke must not enter. ‘Tell him, I forbid him!” 
A pitiful, unplanned, magnificent gesture, this, magnifi- 
cent as the stillness of death. 

The power of it is felt: the courtiers retire and the 
gray-haired Jester is left alone with his daughter. 

He bids her tell him all. This she does, more or less. 
But Verdi enwraps the sordid tale in such a wealth of 
endearing melody that we luckily lose sight of its gross- 
ness. You may be sure, she strongly emphasizes, with 
a splendor of high notes and colorature, her terror and 
helplessness when bound and carried from home. You 
do not wonder at Rigoletto responding with pity and 
comfort. 3 

“Weep here on my heart,” he sings: but he it is who 
does most of the weeping: this we somehow surmize from 
the music. Never has the love of a father been more 
superbly portrayed in song than Verdi has done in this 
opera. In the present duet Gilda’s voice sings sweet, 
gasping phrases that harmonize with, but only touch 


44 OPERAVAND ES s TAKS 


lightly, the deep, strong, tender theme of the broken- 
hearted Jester. 

An interlude now occurs back-stage. Ominous drum- 
notes sound as the old man, Monterone—lately sentenced 
to death for his rash vituperative attack upon the Duke 
—is seen, being led to his cell by halberdiers. As he 
passes by the royal apartment, he pauses at sight of the 
Duke's portrait—pauses to hurl once again his thunder- 
ing malediction upon the profligate ruler, the vile seducer 
—“still unavenged !—still unavenged!’’ 

The white-haired nobleman, doomed but unbending 
passes on, but his words have aroused Rigoletto. He, 
too, now addresses the portrait in fiery tones and, in- 
cidentally, in throbbing melody. He vows that the heart- 
less fiend shall yet feel a father’s wrath. Gilda, tho 
secretly alarmed at this fierce uprising, tries to join in 
his splendid fury: but in her heart of hearts she well 
knows “there is naught of anger’’—this much she ad- 
mits to herself. In plain, frank English, be it stated, 
this ruined lady still loves her betrayer. But after all 
she is a young thing—this unguarded heroine of Hugo’s 
tale—so let us not be over-harsh: she pays later on— 
poor girl. For the present her anguish, or rather, her 
father’s anguish, inspires a duet whose leaping melody 
rings out with a vigor as unbounded as the faith that 
moves mountains. The hobbling Jester stands suddenly 
a giant: he treads the earth in seven-league boots with 
the mighty stride of a fierce resolve. He shouts the song 
of a Hercules, and we know that naught can stay him. 
All the Fates and Furies have fired him: he is Nemesis 
let loose with the doom of destiny clutched in his hand. 

The last act soon discloses the scheme of Rigoletto’s 
revenge. We see a setting somewhat similar to the one 


“RIGOLETTO” | 45 


in the second act. It is again late at night, but the wall- 
enclosed cottage in this instance is situated on a lonely 
roadway outside of the town. In this cottage-garden, or 
courtyard, there is also—as in the other scene—a stair- 
way leading to a sleeping-room above. But this whole 
establishment is decrepit and half in ruins. However, 
it serves as an inn—an evil-looking one—but a table and 
chairs in the garden, and the bedroom above, give ex- 
cuse for the shabby sign that swings at the gate. The 
owner of this so-called inn is none other than the affable 
murderer whom we saw soliciting trade in the second 
act. He is not seeking trade to-night: he has presumably 
enough work on hand. Just now he is resting at home: 
he is seated at the table polishing a belt by way of 
pastime. His name is Sparafucile. 

As the curtain rises we see on the roadway, outside 
the wall, Rigoletto and Gilda in agitated discussion, tho 
they “parlando” their words in hushed recitative. Rigo- 
letto’s revenge is well-planned: the only difficulty he has 
encountered is Gilda’s abiding love for her betrayer. He 
has set the plot going: has sought out Sparafucile at his 
accustomed corner, and has enabled the outlaw’s hand- 
some sister to catch the eye of the vagrant, incognito 
Duke. All this he has done, and the sister—knowing 
well her part—has induced the Duke to meet her this 
night at the secluded inn. They are waiting for him 
now. | 

All is well, save that Rigoletto, before the deed is 
done, wishes to disillusion his hapless daughter. For 
this purpose he has dragged Gilda here to-night. 
Through a crevice in the wall she shall see for herself 
how her fickle lover disports himself. This done—it is 
his plan to have Gilda, garbed as a boy, haste away with 


46 OP ERAT AINED Ais) AS 


him to Verona, before the Duke’s death is discovered. 

Such are his plans, poor Fool, but they all go awry as 
most plans do, when vengeance alone devises them. 

Again and again, Rigoletto asks Gilda, whether she 
still holds her lover dear: and always she answers, 
“Yes.” “Tho you should see with your own eyes his 
worthlessness, would there still be love in your heart?” 
She falters a little, but again answers, “Yes, I think so.” 
This is discouraging but, Rigoletto still hopes, still hopes 
to wrench from her heart this sadly misplaced love. 

While Gilda and her father have been talking outside, 
the Duke, disguised as a soldier, enters the inn, seats 
himself at the table and orders wine. Sparafucile goes 
out to fetch it. The Duke glances about for the winsome 
Delilah of this rendezvous: he waits a moment and 
then, seeing no one, he sings a song to pass the time. 

Trust Gilda, the listening girl outside, to recognize that 
voice! She cringes at the uncurbed words of his tap- 
room ditty, but that voice, that voice!—her heart leaps 
at the sound of it—she loves him—God pity her! You 
can’t blame her much when you hear that song, for it 
is the immortal, bubbling, sparkling, ever-new “La Donna 
é€ Mobile’: eternally sung, played, whistled, string- 
scraped, organ-ground, banjo-plucked, fluted, oboed, 
xylophoned, saxophoned, jazzed—and still emerging 
light as air and merry-hearted, still imparting tingle and 
thrill whenever and wherever met with. 

When the Duke’s song is ended the gay bella-donna 
who had occasioned his presence here, comes lustily down 
the stairs to greet him. Poor Gilda quivers indeed at 
sight of the handsome, gypsy-clad wench: she shivers, 
heart-sick, when the Duke extends to this slum of the 
streets, gallant words and caresses. 


“RIGOLETTO” 47 


In the meantime, Sparafucile, leaving the two within 
the enclosure, has come out to speak with Rigoletto. He 
does not see Gilda standing by the darkened wall, peer- 
ing through that convenient crevice, nor does she hear 
what he says to her father. Sudden deafness and blind- 
ness, temporary, timely, and unexplained are of frequent 
occurrence in Grand Opera. 

Sparafucile asks Rigoletto whether the deed shall be 
done now! In other words, is the money ready? Before 
the flash of steel, a glimpse of gold is needed. Rigoletto 
answers, “Not yet. Return again soon.” He wishes 
Gilda to see still more—to watch that infamous pair till 
her eyes are ablaze with fury, and her love flames into 
hate. This he hopes for, not alone for her own good, 
but also by way of winning her applause instead of cen- 
sure for the vengeance he is about to wreak. Poor Fool! 
Poor Fool! How little he knows of the human heart, 
of a woman’s heart, or for that matter—of his own sub- 
conscious reasoning. 

Sparafucile goes off-stage toward the river to wait, 
thus leaving Gilda and Rigoletto in the roadway, and 
Maddalena and the Duke within the courtyard. Gilda 
ever and again peers through the creviced wall watching 
the Duke’s love-making and Maddalena’s bold coquetry. 
Rigoletto, close by, urges Gilda to cease her weeping, 
forget the scoundrel and learn to hate him. 

Thus they act, and thus they speak—all of which is 
of no importance whatever: only the music—the har- 
mony wrought from their diverse emotions—only this is 
what counts and is remembered. Verdi, the creator of 
this mimic universe, has here most vividly pointed 
the moral that all things work together for good—at 
least for good as applied to music. When he finished it 


48 OPBPRAVANDI ED Sis ARS 


he must have felt, in finite fashion, as the First Great 
Harmonizer felt when his work was done and He saw 
that all was good: this much of God’s own joy it is the 
privilege of every honest workman to experience. 

You are listening now to the “Rigoletto Quartet,” a 
masterpiece only paralleled in popularity by the famed 
“Lucia Sextette.” 

The quartet in one way surpasses its rival, in that the 
music of the four voices, gives individual and adequate 
expression to the feelings of each participant. There 1s 
gasping anguish in Gilda’s heart-broken realization of 
her lover’s perfidy, rollicking comedy in Maddalena’s 
mock repulse of her visitor’s advances, a winning love- 
song on the Duke’s part, while Rigoletto throughout 
sings steadily of revenge. The music itself, not merely 
the words, expresses by varying rhythm and theme these 
strongly conflicting emotions. It abounds in good coun- 
terpoint, the genuine article, but is never a bit involved. 
You, who run at the very mention of classical music, are 
swallowing whole gulps of it when you hear this quartet 
—you swallow it right down and never know it. You 
only know you are hearing the most rousing, grandiose, 
tuneful and tender, heart-tearing piece of four-part sing- 
ing you have ever heard, or will hear—with great 
luscious orchestra harmonies weaving their way under- 
neath, 

So much for the hackneyed but imperishable ‘“Rigo- 
letto Quartet.” 

When it ends, Rigoletto in unaccompanied recitative 
hastily bids Gilda rush home, don her doublet and hose, 
and flee on horse, as they have planned, to nearby 
Verona where he will meet her. This plan does not 
greatly interest Gilda—she is too heart-broken—but )she 
goes as commanded. 


“RIGOLETTO” 49 


Rigoletto then summons Sparafucile from behind the 
house, and the transaction of “‘half-down”’ is attended to. 
Rigoletto promises to return at midnight with the other 
half. Sparafucile deftly suggests he need not be so 
prompt, all will be well, he himself will throw the body 
into the river. But the Jester is too shrewd for this: he 
wishes personally to attend to that part. Caution and 
fear of betrayal—the eternal vanguard and rear-guard 
of homicide—have already clutched upon him. And 
probably he is already enduring that endless dialog that 
ensues on the heels of crime. 

“Am I really a murderer ?” 

“No, of course not. There was this or that mitigat- 
ing, or imperative motive or circumstance.” 

Thus, they argue within themselves, back and forth, 
to the end of days. 

Rigoletto wields no weapon, he does not kill, hence— 
in a sense—he is no murderer. To make this evidence 
a little more clear to himself, he goes out of sight, out 
of hearing until midnight. 

Sparafucile, his money in his purse, re-enters the 
courtyard. 

And now darkness falls over the land: I mean dark- 
ness of mood and of music. A fling of sheet lightning 
torments the sky, but far more vivid is the sound of it 
in the orchestra—a lone flash of flute arpeggioed pres- 
tissimo. | 

Sparafucile speaks of an approaching storm. The 
Duke makes light of it—does not care—cares for noth- 
ing just now but the brazen, black-eyed Maddalena. He 
teasingly seizes her: she escapes him—to the tune of 
his recent love-song: just a touch of it tossed off by the 
_clarionet. ; 


50 OPE RAVANDEMESS st RS 


The music from now on is fragmentary, restless, a 
troubled spirit broods over all: again there sounds the 
gleaming flute as the lightning glows. Follows a 
pianissimo play of distant thunder—and then truly weird 
and original on Verdi's part—there is a gruesome hum- 
ming of hidden voices (the chorus back-stage) in creepy 
chromatics that add a shivery tone-color to the dire 
doings now under way. ‘There are long pauses in the 
orchestra while those on the stage utter deadly common- 
places as we do in real life to conceal our motives and 
meanings. 

Sparafucile again warns of the storm and advises the 
Duke to stay over night. Maddalena, in an aside, urges - 
him to go. The Duke, all unheeding, flings her an aside 
of different purport. But the clarionet spies upon him 
and exposes his meaning: it impishly clarions a hint of 
his love-song. 

Maddalena is troubled: she finds herself recoiling at 
the thought of his doom. Again those hidden voices— 
Fate speaking—again the trickle of lightning on the flute 
—and again silence among the watching instruments of 
the orchestra—that never-sleeping conscience of Grand 
Opera, following all, revealing all, and quick to forewarn 
if we but listen and heed. 

Sparafucile leads the Duke to the rickety stairs and 
up to the couch in the loggia. Left alone up there, the 
Duke smiles at the primitive accommodations, but cares 
not: he cares only for wine and for the “donnas’ who 
are “mobile.” He sings the song softly, as he closes the 
shutters of his retreat and then lays himself down for 
the “brief hour” he has mentioned in an aside to Mad- 
dalena. 

Talk of diversity in motives and music, there was never 


‘RIGOLL RTO? 51 


a scene in Grand Opera that had more of it. The lilting 
Wine, Woman and Love song is barely ended when 
Maddalena, in the courtyard below, begs her brother not 
to kill this handsome stranger. And at the same time 
Gilda returns fearsomely, but regardless of her father’s 
orders. Love and curiosity have brought her back to 
watch again through that crevice in the wall. She has 
obeyed her father partly, however: she did go home and 
put on the doublet and hose disguise: it was quick dress- 
ing but love and jealousy, we must assume, have en- 
dowed her with superhuman celerity. 

Anyway, back she comes, all alone, and just in time 
_to overhear the discussion between Maddalena and her 
brother. Sparafucile refuses to draw back from the bar- 
gain: he wants the rest of the money. Maddalena sug- 
gests that he let the Hunchback hand over the money and 
then kill him instead of the fine gentleman upstairs. But 
Sparafucile is a man of principle: he refuses to stoop to 
such a deed: kill his employer !—never! 

All this Gilda hears while the musical atmosphere still 
is flecked with silence—hidden voices—and recurring 
glints of flute-play and rumble of deadened drums. After 
much persuasion Maddalena induces her brother to con- 
sent to one alternative: the orchestra firmly accompanies 
him in this brilliant blood-curdling proposal. If some 
other stranger should arrive at the inn before the ap- 
pointed hour Sparafucile is willing to kill him instead of 
the sweet-voiced singer of love-songs now asleep in the 
loggia. There is slight chance of any stranger appearing 
in such a storm, but beyond this dubious concession 
Sparafucile will not be moved: he stubbornly works at 
a sack he is mending—a sack in which to carry out the 
body of whoever it may be he this night kills. 


52 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


The storm still rages, the stage darkens, the music 
thunders and crashes, harrowing the hearer with its 
cumulation of groaning chorus and its murderous theme 
in octaves, cold and hard, as pointed stilettos. 

There is no delay now in the awfulness that follows. 
To save her father as well as her lover and also—it may 
be—to escape from her own frenzied heart-ache Gilda 
now resolutely knocks at the gate. 

The “stranger” has appeared! 

Sparafucile, with drawn dagger stands back of the 
door, as Maddalena opens. 

Then utter blackness on the stage. We are spared the 
hideous sight, but we hear it all in the music—a riven 
driven plunge of chords and broken octaves, an ensemble 
of troubled tremolos, piercing staccatos like flung knives 
—and still that steady drone of muffled voices, wailing 
spirits of the air, witches howling, shrieking a snarl of 
chromatics, and then at last as the rain and storm ceases, 
slowly dies down—then at last in the darkness and 
silence, we hear the clock strike twelve. 

Rigoletto, prompt to the minute, waits outside. 
Sparafucile, equally prompt, opens the gate, mutely re- 
ceives his pay, and then drags out and hands over to 
Rigoletto—the filled sack. He loses no time in disap- 
pearing, leaving the hunchback to the pleasant task of 
tumbling the sack into the river. In real life, he prob- 
ably would do this at once with never a moment wasted. 
But in Grand Opera one pauses to sing forth one’s tri- 
umphant joy when a real revenge has been achieved. 
Rigoletto does this in tempered recitative: his feelings 
are not wholly exuberant, but his tones unmistakably de- 
clare that the torment of hate 1s abated. 

He is about to drag off the gruesome bundle—when 


“RIGOLETTO” 53 


a monstrous thing happens. The Duke’s voice is heard 
singing in the distance! The storm having ceased, he, 
the Duke, has risen from his siesta and gone—possibly 
urged away by Maddalena. He still sings of the 
“Donna” of fickle fancy. 

Rigoletto knows the song and the voice: how often he 
has heard both at this hour of illicit escapades. The song 
is sung to the end, Rigoletto listening paralyzed, over- 
whelmed, insane with a growing horror. What does the 
hulking bag contain? What man has been killed in the 
Duke’s place? 

Laughed at all his life—can it be that even now the 
tragedy he planned has all been turned to mockery? 

With frenzied terror he wrenches open the bag—sees 
a white staring face—his daughter! 


Here the story ends, and the opera should end, but 
Grand Operas will be Grand Operas. Gilda is not quite 
dead! She comes to life enough to say “Father!” and 

a moment later she finds breath enough to sing with him 
a “rand finale” duet (of course, she still lies in the bag), 
it is all about heaven, and seeing her mother, etc. This 
finally dies down—and so does she—completely this 
time. Then again there is the proper downpour of 
tragic chords in the orchestra, as Rigoletto, realizing all, 
cries out again the echoing monotone of the opera: 
“That curse! The father’s curse is upon me!’ 

With this Rigoletto falls down in a faint. The cur- 
tain falls too, and the audience is usually half-way down 
the aisle, for the hour is late: this opera is ten minutes— 
ten absurd minutes—longer than it should be. 


CHAPTER III 
JEREUZAY A’ STARGOR TH BRA ST: 


HERE ts Moravia? Do you know? I did not— 
beyond a dim familiarity to the sound that 
somehow connected up with the “Prisoner of Zenda” 
and the seething Balkans. But I know now: it is where 
Madame Jeritza was born. 

If one could find the country, one might also find the 
little city of Briinn where she first saw the sunshine 
and, presumably, heard singing: she calls her whole life 
one of “Sunlight and Song’’—has given that title to her 
autobiography. But Moravia is now a part of Czecho- 
Slovakia, a name that promptly dazzles and diverts from 
further pursuit. Say “Czecho-Slovakia” to the average 
American and you will see. a wide-eyed baby-stare of 
geographical innocence: a stare wholly absorbed by a 
confused mental vision of astounding needlework, bi- 
zarre colors, and the audacious splendor of the name 
itself. 

There is something of that same audacious splendor in 
Madame Jeritza’s appearance and performance when on 
the stage. It was three years ago that she flamed into 
prominence here and captured newspaper headlines like 
a Balkan uprising. She made her debut at the Metro- 
politan in an astonishing new opera (new to America) 
that one would think had been written especially for her. 

The plot largely hinges upon—hangs upon—a dead 
woman’s hair. The hero, who has treasured his first 
wife’s luxuriant tresses, uses them as a rope to strangle 


his second wife—Jeritza. Had there been a third wife 
54 


JERITZA 55 


—well—the audience could not fail to note that she 
might easily have been lassoed as well as strangled by 
the marvelous blonde hair of her predecessor, had this 
Bluebeard hero added it to his collection. 

Jeritza is tall, and she treads the earth like a Greek 
goddess. Her voice matches her hair and her figure: it 
is golden, opulent, astonishing. _Yes—-Czecho-Slovakia 
is nothing if not astonishing. 

“Die Todte Stadt” is the name of that first opera we 
heard her in: it reeks and moans with death, horror, and 
despair: Moravia—her homeland—may, too, just now 
be something of a Todte Stadt—but there is nothing 
dead about Jeritza. She is all vibrant energy on the 
stage—a force, and a vision. Her dramatic effects are 
all fearless, sharply outlined, and original: she deals in 
strong colors. A veritable breeze from the Balkans, she 
surcharged the Metropolitan from pit to dome with ex- 
citement. During that memorable first season the house 
was sold out in three days whenever her name was 
announced. 

To get to see her at the Metropolitan required hustle 
and cash—but to see her in private required prayer, 
patience, pen-work, some telephoning, several telegrams 
—and then more prayer. At last through a system of 
relays from her secretary to my publishers and from 
them to me—I was advised to call on “Monday at 2.” 
Mindful of the deference due to a high Eastern poten- 
tate, I presented myself at the outer portals of the St. 
Regis Hotel on Monday at 1:45. During the interven- 
ing minutes I waited in the foyer between the two res- 
taurants. All was stately and quiet—even within the 
tall dining-rooms. 

I presently noted a sudden excitement among the 


56 OPERAVAND TS STARS 


waiters, a hurrying back and forth through the foyer in 
response to imperious signals from the dress-coated over- 
lord. I surely heard whispered mention of “Jeritza,” 
and then saw added eddies of excitement among the 
retainers. 

What manner of August Personage was this, I 
thought, that all of St. Regis should tip-toe and flutter 
when she chanced to enter the dining-room—conde- 
scended to eat! My republican blood was rebelling. I 
was losing interest in Madame Jeritza upon realizing that 
a further wait would probably be requested of me since 
she had but just now commenced luncheon. 

Promptly at two, I handed in my card at the desk. 
The clerk rang Madame’s room-number. There was no 
answer. My consternation over the fact that her apart- 
ment was vacant—that it held no imperial retinue, as I 
had imagined, almost superseded my indignation over the 
fact that my 2 o’clock appointment was ignored. I then 
suggested the dining-room, but was told she seldom eats 
there. Had I then been mistaken about the whispered 
agitation among those waiters? By persistent insistence 
I induced them to send in a boy with my card. But I 
was furious and ready to fly without waiting for his 
return. There was war in my heart. Moravia was to 
me just then an exceedingly Todte Stadt—Czecho- 
Slovakia, too, was wiped off the map—the whole cubistic 
bunch of them. 

But right now a voice from above (I was seated for 
the moment) a voice strangely mellow and beneficent was 
sounded in my ear with something of the effect of a 
herald angel singing Peace on Earth. “Oh, Madame, 
I am: sorry—what shall I do?” It was Jeritza herself, 
tall, blonde, radiant and a bit out of breath. 





MARIA JERITZA 





JERITZA 3% 


Czecho-Slovakia was restored to the map! The mo- 
ment I laid eyes on that smiling but earnest, child-like— 
yes, child-like—face, I loved Jeritza—just loved her, and 
was ready to do anything for her. She wore a black 
tailored suit and a black hat, with no furbelows or jewels 
in view. I forced myself to note this—it was an effort 
—for her halo of hair and her bright smile so captured 
me that I saw her all garbed in glory and gold. 

She was still asking earnestly—her English a bit hesi- 
tant: “What shall I do? It was yesterday I expected 
you.” Ah!—that explained it—the relay of wires had 
twisted her “Sunday” to ‘““Monday.” 

“And to-day,” she went on, “I am having a friend 
with me to lunch, and after that I take a lesson. It seems 
terrible to ask you to come again, or to wait several 
hours.” 

“I will come whenever you tell me to, whenever I may 
see Madame Jeritza alone.” 

“Could you come back to-morrow at 2:30?” 

“T could and I would—even tho the hour named had 
been midnight or 2:30 A.M. Any time, any place, I 
would now have come—not merely for the sake of again 
meeting this geriial song-lady, all simplicity in private, 
however sumptuous in public, but because I was now all 
curiosity on another quest—all keen and a-quiver to know 
_ why, and what about, and from whom she was taking a 
lesson! Prima donnas, I know, are “coached” in their 
roles, but never yet have I heard one confess to taking 
“lessons.” There is thrilling naiveté in that phrase. 

Jeritza is imperial on the stage, but at home—let me 
say it again—she is sweetly, adorably, child-like. 

So at 2:30 on the next day I was again a supplicant 


58 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


at my St. Regis shrine. This time I was uplifted at 
once—fourteen stories. 

“To the right, please, and then ’round the corner’— 
was the direction I received from the smiling cherub who 
had elevated me. 

I passed on and on, through the corridors of Time, 
so it seemed, till at last I reached the designated corner 
and here—behold—my way was barred! No flaming 
sword flashed before me, but I did see a somewhat 
flaming signal: in letters of red wherever I looked I saw 
the initials “M. P. J.” They flashed out at me from a 
black background: the ebony sides of huge, stout ward- 
robe trunks, piled up in rows, all packed, locked and 
ready for shipping—twelve of them! I counted care- 
fully as I maneuvered my way around them. ‘There 
were satchels, too, and hat trunks. Who packed them 
allP A Dantesque vision of the confusion entailed in 
the planning and packing of so many trunks gave a sen- 
sible jerk to my soaring spirit: I had mounted high— 
but this was not Heaven. 

A moment later I rang a bell, and a moment later I 
was talking to Her—yes—and loving her again as I had 
the day before. But I did not forget what I had come 
for! After shaking hands with the Dawn (she is Aurora 
herself) and after making a few proper remarks about 
the weather—and remembering, when I sat down, not 
to sit on the sofa (for in Europe, only Kings, Queens, 
and Mothers-in-law may presume to use the sofa), I 
splashed right in with my burning question, regardless 
of proprieties, split infinitives, or mixed metaphors: 

“Please, Madame, tell me about that lesson you had 
yesterday. Do you really take lessons? It seems so 
wonderful of you to still take lessons.” 


JERITZA 59 


“Why, of course, I take lessons. I have English les- 
sons three times a week, and Ensemble lessons from Mr. 
Polacco, and singing lessons from Madame Sembrich.” 

There you have it boys, girls and students the world 
over: ponder that sentence well—copy it out, hang it 
over your desk. Always studying, always striving to 
advance further, always willing to learn from others— 
herein lies the secret—not only of achieving success, but 
of retaining it, which is harder by far than the first 
climb 

I believe, of the three, those English lessons astonished 
me the most. Madame Jeritza has been here three sea- 
sons and really knows the language quite well: she un- 
derstands perfectly, has a bit of an accent that you 
wouldn’t like her to lose, and she seldom hesitates for a 
word. One might think, since she is to be here next 
season and the next, she could afford to let English just 
soak in—learn itself. But no, whatever Jeritza learns, 
she learns thoroughly. She believes, too, that one’s 
brain is best developed and kept alert by continuous 
study, actual lesson-book study. Ah! but they are con- 
querors!—these super-artists in Grand Opera: they 
domineer and command by the sheer right and force that 
results from first commanding themselves. In spite of 
long hours in public performances, and still longer hours 
at rehearsals, in spite of time given to costumes, to their 
fitting and designing, in spite of time spent in memoriz- 
ing new roles and keeping letter-perfect in old ones ; time 
reserved, too, for needed rest, also for the hairdresser and 
the general upkeep of beauty—so essential to operatic 
success—time too absorbed in travel, in the planning of 
schedules and engagements, in spite of all this the reso- 
Tute Jeritza so rules her life that she still can give regular 


60 OPERA AND MTS SLARS 


time to the study of English—as she has done in the past 
to French and Italian. I doff my hat and make my bow 
to such persistent determination as this after one already 
has attained to the ultimate: to fill the Metropolitan night 
after night is the ultimate altitude of success a singing 
star can achieve. 

The ‘ensemble’ lessons are imperative and under- 
standable. However gloriously you may sing your own 
part, if you are unacquainted with—and do not conform 
to—the varying tempos, interpretation, and pauses of the 
orchestra, you will find a tower of Babel tumbling upon 
your guilty head. Signor Polacco is one of the Metro- 
politan’s orchestra conductors. : 

That Jeritza, too, takes lessons of Madame Sembrich 
is no occasion for surprize: a woman who has the brain- 
power that lifts her to such eminence must for the same 
reason be wise enough to appreciate the privilege of 
receiving instruction from the world’s Super Star, the 
past mistress of song, the one and only Marcella Sem- 
brich. What Madame Sembrich does not know about 
singing may be a guarded secret closely kept by the 
Angel Israfel: but certain it is that such knowledge, if it 
exists, is not possessed by any one on this planet. It 
must be a wondrous joy to follow such a guide as the 
supreme Sembrich through the dear, but dangerous, laby- 
rinths of music. Jeritza is to be envied for this expe- 
rience. Envied too, she may be, and probably is, for 
the multitude of great gifts that are hers. She has 
beauty, she has youth, she has health, she has a titled 
position socially (Baroness von Popper is her real 
name). She has a great voice; she has also the necessary 
will-power, the unbending pertinacity that already has 
brought her to the highest reach of fame. And besides 


JERITZA 61 


all this she experiences in each performance that price- 
less joy—far greater than applause—the joy of creation, 
self-expression, giving utterance to the best that is in 
one. O Favored Lady! How can such things be—such 
perfection of existence? But suddenly I perceived, or 
thought I perceived, one tiny shadow that might at 
times dull, just a little, the astounding radiance of her 
life. What has she to look forward to, to strive for, 
what remaining ambition can she have? I was there to 
ask questions so I bluntly asked this one. 

She smilingly answered: “My chief ambition right 
now—the one I am most striving for, I believe, is to 
have a vacation!” 

Poor, tired Prima Donna! But no, not exactly that, 
for you see, she can not, she must not, she dare not be 
“tired’”’—at least not on the days she appears in public. 
She must always be at her best, because her performance 
is each time acclaimed or condemned not only by the 
audience, but by the press the next day. The actor 
giving the same role night after night attains by this 
very repetition a restful proficiency, but he may weaken 
sometimes, fall short of his best, and still escape being 
splashed by the splutterings of the critics. 

How different the two arts of spoken drama and 
Grand Opera. The actor excels in realism, but the perils 
of his art are few compared to those of the opera singer. 
The actor is not eternally tethered to tempo.. Madame 
Jeritza was keen on this subject. 

“The actor may take a breath long or short as he 
chooses: he may lengthen his pauses or diminish them 
and nothing terrible will happen.” 

True indeed! and at any point in the play he may give 
‘new emphasis or a new hush to his words and his effect 


62 ODERA, ANDES SEAS 


will not be buried under by a crashing of instruments, 
nor made ridiculous by a sudden sub-rosa accompani- 
ment. 

But the actor’s great advantage consists in the fact 
that he is expressing himself through his habitual, life- 
long medium of vocal utterance—speech. It is not gen- 
erally realized that the speaking voice, however multiple 
and marvelous its modulations, seldom uses a compass 
of more than five notes—tho these may be shaded and 
slurred into every minutia of subdivisions. I venture 
to say that even the highest uprise of vehement utter- 
ance barely reaches to an octave. 

The opera-singer, however, while giving expression to 
the same emotions and words used by the actor, must 
add unto these not only one, but two acquired arts. Be- 
sides the habitual tones of the speech-compass he also 
uses the higher octaves—makes beautiful resonance in 
registers of voice never touched upon by the speaker. 
Not only uses them but blends them with the lower tones, 
joins them in a sequence so smooth that no break in- 
tervenes: this in itself is an art few singers attain to 
perfection. 

But aside from these cultivated upper tones—these art- 
tones—never used in daily life, the singing actor uses 
also and at the same time the imperious, uncompromising 
medium of music: he uses two languages simultaneously, 
one written with words, the other with notes. 

Madame Jeritza spoke feelingly, even sighed, at the 
thought of how seldom the arduous work of it is appre- 
ciated. 

“We study a role, work day and night at the memoriz- 
ing, keep the voice trained to it, learn the action, the 
tempos, the pauses, keep our ears trained too, lest by 


JERITZA 63 


some awful chance there is one note the least flat or 
sharp: with it all we must be graceful every moment, and 
feel deeply every emotion portrayed, and then, after all 
our efforts, some listener who is indifferent to the music, 
or feels disgruntled—has a headache, perhaps—will 
criticize what we have done and tell others he was un- 
impressed. Oh, it is hard—hard work.” Madame Jeritza 
was terribly in earnest. There is a shadow-side, too, 
you see—even to a life of “Sunlight and Song.” But 
I am sure she was thinking now of past experiences 
rather than of the present for she suddenly added, with 
cheering sincerity, “I must say, however, that American 
audiences are remarkably appreciative, and are fond of 
good music.” 

“What, and where was your first audience?” I asked, 
“your very first public appearance ?”’ 

“I first sang at a school concert in my native town.” 
A cheering bit of news this will be to sweet sixteen who 
is planning now the white dress she will wear and the song 
she will sing when she graduates next June. But Jeritza 
was very young when she sang in that first school-concert. 
She was small, but the music she sang was big. You 
never can guess what it was. She smiled herself as she 
told it. 

“T sang with a boy” (there was merriment in every 
curve of her face as she recalled that “boy’’) ; ‘‘we sang 
the duet in the third act of ‘Lohengrin.’ ” 

I think she wanted to let it go at that, but I was merci- 
less in my pursuit. “You mean the wedding-scene duet, 
after the chorus has gone out?” 

“Yes, that was it,’ she admitted. | 

Now this isn’t as funny as it sounds, tho we do 
enjoy the mental picture of the great Jeritza in school- 


64 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


girl garb with yellow braids down her back, singing with 
bird-like impetuosity to a boy “Lohengrin,” also terribly 
in earnest tho dressed in a velvet jacket and short 
trousers (I feel sure there must have been embroidery 
on the cuffs and collar), both of them singing with all 
their might Wagner’s great wedding duo, usually pictured 
with a sumptuous medieval setting, a pair of enraptured 
lovers and a lavish glow of moonlight. How that “boy” 
and girl ever came to select such a grandiose composition 
for a school-concert, I don’t know; but fate, I think, 
knew all about it. A few years later this same little girl 
with the same yellow braids (decked in pearls now and 
medievally draped upon her shoulders), this same little 
girl, somewhat taller, made her debut in Grand Opera 
in a prima donna role; the opera was “Lohengrin.” 

She made early acquaintance with the music of 
Wagner, learned early to admire, understand and love 
the towering tone-structures of this master architect 
whose mighty chords like blocks of marble, rough-hewn 
or smooth, are each one immutably placed. The first 
opera she heard was “Die Meistersinger.”’ 

“IT was only fourteen at the time, and, as you may 
imagine, was tremendously expressed—no, impressed.” 

This was the only missed word during the interview, 
the only slip that might suggest a possible occasion for 
those lessons in English. A further question as to which 
opera most “im’’-pressed her now, which one she loved 
best, brought promptly the reply: “The one I am singing 
in is the one I love best!” | 

I now asked about concert-work, whether she found 
it as interesting as singing in opera. She considered this 
question for a moment—gave it some real thought. 

“Concert-work is, of course, more restricted—one 


JERITZA 6s 


misses the freedom of expression; I can’t tear my hair 
when singing a ballad, as I do when singing ‘La Tosca.’ ”’ 

Jeritza’s Tosca in the second act is famous for the 
way she casts caution and coiffure to the winds—dia- 
monds too; her hair tumbles to her waist, her tiara to 
the floor. But this isn’t being done on the concert-stage, 
not even by Calvé, the original 33rd degree master of 
do-as-you-please effects when singing in public. 

“But concert work is inspiring because we every time 
have a different audience.” I glean from this that the 
perpetual round of subscribers at the opera, have a some- 
what unnerving effect. 

I asked some details of her coming tour—her concert 
season just begun. “We go as far as St. Louis, but must 
travel back and forth—go here and there.’ She sud- 
denly asked me a question; the matter for the moment 
uppermost in her mind had elbowed its way to the front. 

“Can you tell me how long it takes to go from here 
to Akron, Ohio?” (She pronounced it O-hee-o.) “I sing 
there on the 20th.” 

“About eighteen hours if you make good connections.” 
Si there was real alarm in her face. “But I must be 
back here the 21st. How can it be done?” 

She called to her secretary; a confusion of questions 
on her lips. A mistake in calculation had evidently been 
made—American distances are an unending revelation to 
foreigners. But the dates were now unalterable; she 
must manage somehow to appear and sing with unruffled 
voice and steady breath, after a night and day of hurried 
travel—and just suppose the train should be late! 

Poor, tired and troubled prima donna! But she was 
courteous and gracious to the last, saw me to the door— 


66 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


even half-way to the trunks—and promised to send me 
her picture. 

I am still asking myself how she will do it; sing in 
Ohio on the 20th and in New York on the 21st. 

But the stars do move and have their being in strange, 
mysterious ways. This beaming star, Jeritza (this name, 
by the way, is astronomical—not baptismal) will shed 
her light somehow, I know, in two distant States on two 
succeeding evenings; she will shine in full glory, and 
touch the zenith each time. Such is my faith in this star 
of the East—my admiration for Maria Jeritza. 


CHAPTER IV 
CAL OSG Av 


BLOOD-CURDLING story set to heart-wrench- 
A ing music—this is “La Tosca.” 

Sardou, the greatest deviser of dramatic situations 
France has known, and Puccini, Italy’s reigning monarch 
of music, form in this opera an international “combine” 
that is forceful and enduring and pulls at the heart- 
strings of the people. 

“La Tosca” was a successful play long before Puccini 
was known. Sarah Bernhardt created the rdle; sobbed 
and shrieked and shivered in it till her audience was 
gasping for breath. Puccini must at one time have heard 
the play and participated in the whirlwind of feeling it 
aroused. When genius is stirred there follows a dream, 
many days of hard work, and then—creation. Puccini 
transmitted his emotions into music; but let us never 
overlook the intervening days of persistent work. Genius 
is divine—so is work. God himself, we are told, worked 
six days, or six eons, so mightily that the seventh was 
given over to rest. 

The libretto of a Grand Opera is, for the most part, 
a thing of horror—a confusion of far-flung words, ap- 
parently without form, and void. Let us study for a 
while the little universe of balanced harmony and discord 
that Puccini created when he brooded over the “La 
Tosca” libretto and gave solemn command to his listen- 
ing soul: “Let there be music!” 

He saw first, as we see now when the curtain rises, the 
-nave of an empty church in Rome in the year 1800. It 


is a massive, historic, peace-breathing church, everything 
67 


68 ORDRA GAN Dei Ses we Nis 


in it bespeaking worship and holiness; the only ex- 
traneous item being a scaffolding at one side that bears 
a huge easel and a canvas, now covered. Into this scene 
of impressive peace and sanctity comes a sudden plunge 
of world-terror and misery. An escaped political prisoner, 
just fled from the famed fort of San Angelo, rushes in 
panting, pursued, white-faced and frightened. 

There is no prelude or overture to “La Tosca’; the 
music hurtles at once into action as does the story. The 
first chords in the orchestra, shattering the peace of the 
holy place, are a chromatic cataclysm; a ponderous, 
gasping, discordant sequence—triple fortissimo—that 
tumbles upon the listener and topples all his prearranged 
taste upside down He suddenly delights in strong, heady 
discords and daring, jagged rhythm. 

There is certainly rebellion in this music, as there is 
in the heart of the escaped prisoner on the stage—late 
leader of an attempted Roman republic. These anar- 
chistic chords, by the way, recur in the orchestra when- 
ever the prisoner’s name, Angelotti, is mentioned, 
throughout the opera. His present flight to this church, 
we soon learn, is prompted by a letter from his sister, 
an abettor to his escape. She tells him in the letter 
where he will find the key to the grilled gate of their 
private chapel (plainly seen at one side) wherein he may 
hide, for a while, till his pursuers are diverted. Nervously 
reading the directions as he looks here and there, Ange- 
lotti presently finds the key at the foot of one of the 
images; he shiveringly unlocks the iron gate, and dis- 
appears. The orchestra, still growling discords like a 
crouching, heavy-breathing, disturbed tiger, gradually 
subsides in its animosity; it rolls over and now blinks 
at the world with its other eye. Whoever said discords! 


HAY TOSCAY 69 


Avaunt such a thought! The Holy Roman Empire is a 
realm of perfect peace with touches of merriment mixed 
with its godliness. Comes a tripping staccato melody 
now in the orchestra, and on the stage a beaming brown- 
clad little sacristan. He has love in his heart—and a few 
minor sins—and a bundle of brushes in his hand. These 
he must clean for the artist who comes daily to work on 
the picture which he is copying from one of the murals: 
a life-size picture of the Madonna. 

The sacristan babbles about the brushes—supposing 
the artist, Cavaradossi, to be up on the ladder—then, 
suddenly discovering no one there, he climbs up himself 
for a peep at the painter’s lunch-basket, sent in every day 
and always enticingly full, A moment later, hearing the 
Angelus bell, the endearing old busybody hurries down 
and kneels for a bit of a prayer. His part of the devotion 
is, by its very suddenness, not over-intense—but the 
music prays for him; the pianissimo of the orchestra 
imparts a sweet sanctity to the well-meaning Fra. 

Now follows the breezy entrance of Cavaradossi, late 
at his work, hurrying to the easel, flinging off his coat, 
then lifting aside the covering of his picture. 

The sacristan, busy again with the brushes, looks too 
at the painting and exclaims with amazement: “It is a 
portrait!’ He recognizes the likeness of a lady who of 
late has been praying daily before the image of the 
Madonna (the same image at whose base Angelotti found 
the chapel key; the lady, we learn later, was his sister). 
Cavaradossi admits the change he has made in his copy 
of the old master’s painting. The lady was so beautiful 
and devout at her prayers that, all unknown to her, he 
_has transferred to his canvas her golden hair and blue 
eyes. Even more than this has he done in the way of 


70 OPERATAND TPS STARS 


divergence from the original he is supposed to be copy- 
ing: the “dusky bloom” of his sweetheart, Floria, has 
been given to his Madonna’s complexion; he is delighted 
with the effect—the contrast of coloring. 

Foolish artist! Wise old sacristan! He crosses him- 
self, is shocked at the change, and mumbles that no good 
can come from thus tampering with the tints of the 
holy picture. 

All unconscious of the trouble he is brewing in trying 
to blend with the celestial the beauty of two women 
wholly terrestial, Cavaradossi exuberantly sings of the 
wonder of art, its power of commingling Beauty and 
Prayer and Love. Underneath his singing—his tenor 
tones—the sacristan inserts, ever and again, his chatter- 
ing disapproval; and underneath both of these there 
sways and surges the unceasing sound of the orchestra, 
the great throbbing sea of emotion, with its countless 
undercurrents, upon which poor, petty mortals are for- 
ever striving to float calmly. | 

The duo ended, and the brushes cleaned, the sacristan 
patters toward the vestry, to a recurrence among the 
instruments of his own wholly adorable—but far from 
devout—tripping, staccato theme. With a final admonish- 
ment to Cavaradosst about remembering to lock the 
church door when he leaves, the genial little Keeper of 
the Keys goes out. The painter continues at his work and 
the music is still mindful, in a diminuendo way, of the 
recent religious jocularity. 

Then the turn of a key in the side-chapel gate. 
Angelotti, thinking the church empty, now stealthily 
comes forth to make further flight. Cavaradossi hears 
and turns around. So does the orchestra; a crash of 
chords chromatic spells the agitation on the stage. The 


VBA TEOSCA? is | 


prisoner, after his first terror, rushes forward, suddenly 
recognizing the painter as an old friend. Cavaradossi, 
for the moment amazed, soon responds with open-armed 
sympathy on learning of Angelotti's desperate plight, of 
his recent escape from San Angelo. He hurriedly locks 
the church door and bestirs himself to think quickly how 
best to assist his fleeing friend. 

At this moment he hears from outside the door a 
familiar voice calling to him. <A very beautiful voice it 
is, too, for it is that of his sweetheart, Floria, who is 
none other than Rome’s leading prima donna of the 
day—the great La Tosca. Prima donnas, it would seem, 
have been temperamental from the time of Eve on down. 
What they want they must have—and at once. Eve did 
not balk at forbidden fruit, and now La Tosca, finding a 
closed door, insists on entering—and at once. 

“Mario, Mario!’ she calls, very beautifully, but very 
urgently. Mario Cavaradossi hurries Angelotti back 
into the chapel, after bethinking him to hand over to the 
starved fugitive his lunch-basket. Then he rushes to the 
locked door and opens it, receiving La Tosca eagerly 
enough—but observably breathless. 

The glorious creature of his dreams sweeps _ in, 
radiantly in love with her artist, but all the same and 
very naturally, fretted with curiosity. 

“Why was the door locked? Who were you talking 
to? I heard voices!” | 

This is a busy morning for Cavaradosst. His mind 
is still in a turmoil of excitement over poor Angelotti, but 
he is lover and artist enough to lie quickly and convinc- 
ingly when occasion requires. The door was locked 
_ because of the sacristan’s orders, and as for his talking— 
it was to her own precious image! 


72 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


La Tosca wears a satin gown of the Napoleonic period, 
a huge plumed hat and an armful of flowers; she also 
carries a tall, audacious, gilded cane. Her appearance 
is so dazzling that it almost diverts attention from the 
music that accompanies her entrance. But this music 
is even more glowing and colorful than her costume. 
She has brought the flowers to deck the Madonna’s shrine. 
This is not the sole reason of her church-coming but— 
let us not be too captious—she does lay the flowers on 
the pedestal, and then devoutly and gracefully kneels 
before. ite) The: musiciatythis ppoint becomes mtender, 
feminine, and ingratiating enough to hover about either 
a prayer or a love-scene. The throbbing strings of harp 
and violin breathe it to us; listen well to that gentle 
melody mounting like incense as La Tosca silently kneels. 

But she does not kneel long; her thoughts are too 
urgent upon the other matter that has brought her here. 
She now explains to Mario—most winningly and with all 
elation—how she has planned for him to meet her to-night 
after she sings; the opera given is a short one, and they 
then can go together to their villa beyond the city. “The 
moon will be shining to-night.” | 

If Cavaradossi were only listening he would hear that 
promised moonlight—hear it right now in the orchestra; 
not the time-honored tremolos on hushed pianissimo 
strings—Puccini must be original or perish—his moon- 
light is a weird sequence of whispered chords; a splash 
of silver on the composer’s canvas. It is faint and dim 
but dripping with atmosphere. But Cavaradossi is not 
listening as he should; he is still too troubled over his 
friend’s plight. La Tosca quickly notes his absent- 
minded assent to her plan. “You must say it better,” 
she coquettishly insists. Then she sings to him, as a 


eA HOSCAS 73 


prima donna should and would, sings to him of their 
happiness together in the flower-nested cottage—alone— 
alone. Those frail, flung chords of moonlight enmesh 
the music like fragments of mist on a dreaming land- 
scape. But La Tosca’s coaxing phrases are heavy-laden 
with the disarming power of naive simplicity. Clarion 
clear as childish prattle is one little cadence oft-repeated. 
But through it all can be heard the urge of a throbbing, 
imperious womanhood. An Egyptian god—a_ stone 
colossus—must disintegrate to clay ‘neath the insidious 
glow of this “palpitato,’ “abandonate,” ‘“‘molte dolce’ 
aria of Tosca. 

Cavaradosst flings brushes and friend aside as he 
responds to her final reiteration of that ingratiating, child- 
like plea. There is a masculine mightiness in the splendor 
of his reply: the first note he sings is high B, “My siren, 
my beloved—I will come!” 

He clasps her in his arms, but a chance glimpse of the 
chapel-gate concealing Angelotti, recalls him to reality. 
He asks La Tosca to leave him now to his work. 

This is no way to handle a prima donna. She is vexed 
at the dismissal. Instead of going she scrutinizes the 
all-important “work.” She perceives that his Madonna 
has been changed from brunette to blond. 

“Who is she? I don’t like her! She is too handsome.” 

Cavaradosst stupidly parries her question. But La 
Tosca has seen that face somewhere—those deep blue 
eyes; she suddenly recalls the name of the lady. 

“The Countess Attavanti!” 

Cavaradosst applauds her successful guess. This, too, 
is not deftly done. The clumsy man-instinct in such 
matters restrains him from telling all—instantly and 
frankly. Tosca recalls the low voices she heard before 


3d 66 


74 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


gaining admission; she recalls the locked door and now— 
this blonde beauty on the canvas! 

One flash of fate—one second of time—can plunge 
all harmony into chaos—can insert a stinging dissonance 
into every quivering chord. Jealousy—panting, pound- 
ing jealousy—suddenly darkens the orchestral cosmos. 
In mounting, shrieking suspicion, Tosca’s voice rings 
out surcharged with pain; for in all jealousy the feeling 
of resentment and blame is but an atom compared to the 
cataclysmic consciousness of inferiority, failure and 
crushing humility. But this cloaks itself in fury. 

Cavaradossi sees soon enough what his thoughtlessness 
has done, and he has the good sense to call a halt by 
promptly relating the facts of the case; how he copied 
the pale coloring of the Countess as he watched her 
praying at her chapel altar—watched her without ever 
exchanging a word. 

La Tosca finally believes him, sobs in his arms, and 
then—again seeing the painting—she steps away and, half 
in earnest, half in jest, still regrets and loathes those “blue 
eyes!” Cavaradossi, all tenderness, looks into her own 
eyes now and sings of them—of their power over him. 
Oh rhapsody of music! O splendor of love! Not only 
La Tosca but the entire audience responds to this outburst 
of glory—this pzon of rhythmic, engulfing harmony, 
and exalting melody. Weighted with a sweet delirium 
is the music of this great love duo. 

None but Sardou, we fancy, could or would have 
devised such a scéne d’amour in a sanctuary. But be 
not aghast. The music of the scene enwraps it as a 
benediction; music and love well-wedded must always 
reveal some reflection of the altar-lights of Heaven. 

When the duo is ended La Tosca, again smiling, kisses 


VEN AbOSGAS 75 


Cavaradosst good-by, and leaves him at last to his 
work—not before, however, giving one more pretty pout 
as she glances again at the picture. 

“TI do wish you would make those eyes black!” 

As the door closes upon her the orchestra echoes 
dreamingly the three soft, sighing chords that throughout 
the recent scene have spelled for us—amore. 

Then a quick change in the music. We hear again the 
agitated chromatics that troubled the air when the curtain 
arose and Angelotti hurried in. He again hurries for- 
ward from behind the grilled gate, where of course he 
has heard all of the recent scene with La Tosca—a little 
matter this which in no way bothers Cavaradossi for all 
Rome, it seems, knows that he is La Tosca’s lover. But 
he does pause to explain why he refrained from telling 
her of his concealed friend; he feared she might reveal 
something of the incident to her confessor. A necessary 
explanation this—for had he taken her into his con- 
fidence this opera would never have been written—there 
would have been no tragedy to write about! To avert 
tragedy, tell all. Take that for the moral, if moral there 
must be. No good tale, we are told, is without one. 

The scene between the two men is hurried and agitato 
and, for the most part, recitative. Angelotti tells of his 
plan to get away this night across the frontier. He brings 
from the chapel a bundle of clothes, a woman’s outfit, 
which he intends to wear as disguise; his sister has 
placed them there for him—his sister, the Countess Atta- 
vanti. Cavaradosst now knows the occasion of her 
earnest prayers, the rapt devotion which he noticed and 
was impelled to reproduce on his canvas; she was praying 
for her brother’s escape. He must escape not merely 
from the fortress—a staggering achievement in itself— 


76 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


but thereafter he must escape from the far-reaching 
talons of the august chief of Police, the great and awful 
Baron Scarpia; autocrat and aristocrat, famed and 
feared throughout all Rome. 

Cavaradosst rages at the thought of him, “the lasci- 
vious hypocrite—cross between a confessor and a hang- 
man!” This man, with his net-work of spies, Angelott 
must outwit and elude. 

The artist hastens to advise his friend to hide for the 
day in his suburban villa, the same villa where La Tosca 
had planned they should meet that night after the opera. 
He tells Angelotts how he can reach it by a pathway 
through the fields; tells him also of an empty well in the 
garden with a concealed door in it where he may retreat 
if there is search in the villa before he gets started on his 
journey. 

Just to instance the way of composers and the fineness 
of their art: tho the listener may barely note it, the same 
little phrase of Arcadian simplicity that hovered about 
La Tosca’s first mention of the villa again asserts itself 
in the orchestra—flits about among the instruments, 
whispering to every one of them a reminder of the 
“flower-nested”’ little cottage. 

A cannon-shot is heard in the distance—the fortress 
gun announcing an escaped prisoner! 

High pressure in the music now, as Angelotti and the 
artist realize that Scarpia has “unleashed his hounds for 
the search.” Impulsive friendship prompts Cavaradossi 
suddenly to go with Angelotti to the villa to make sure he 
finds the way. He has sworn to save his friend tho it 
cost him his life. | 

There is a hurried exit of the two men and then a 
surprizing change in the music. Puccini follows the tried 


“LA TOSCA” 77 


and true Shakespearean law—the law of life—that 
tragedy and comedy must run apace, are ever at each 
other’s heels. He has barely capped the cadence to those 
world-weary, dissonant chords that forever follow 
Angelotti; has barely purged the atmosphere of this 
miasma and used the conductor’s wand like a witch’s 
broomstick to whisk the two men from the scene—has 
barely done this—when a breeze of familiar melody is 
let loose, and a pattering rhythm that we recognize at 
once as a merry preamble to the busy-body, batty-brained, 
lively little sacristant. He comes in a-tingle with news 
and a mouthful of words. Great news indeed he has to 
impart—he sputters with excitement—but pauses dis- 
_ mayed and disappointed on finding the easel-chair vacant. 
The audience he counted on is gone, but a moment later 
kind fate sends him a still better one. A troop of noisy 
choir-boys come bustling in on their way to rehearsal in 
the sacristy. Be assured those choir-boys have a theme 
and rhythm all their own, one which quite outdoes that 
of the little brown-cowl for prancing hilarity and good 
nature. Without losing one beat of its pulsing waltz- 
swing it does subside into the orchestra and pianissimo 
a bit while the old man tells his great news just learned 
from the Bishop—news, not yet made public. 

“Bonaparte has been beaten! Victory! High doings 
this night! A celebration! A torchlight procession! 
Special music at the palace! A new cantata with La 
Tosca singing—and you boys, too!” 

So elated is the old man that he sings a new tune him- 
self as he tells this—a fling of youth the waltz-theme has 
inspired. The boys laugh and sing in accord, merrier 
now than ever; the celebration, the new cantata, means 
extra wages for them. Dance music in a church may 


78 OPRERA AND TUS SPARS 


suggest the unseemly, but not when it is written by 
Puccini. Great music, well performed and well listened 
to, imparts at any time, anywhere, a stir of beneficence 
that may reach to the soul. 

This scene of blessed noisiness and youth is at its 
height when suddenly at the doorway appears the awe- 
inspiring, magnificent Scarpia—a frown on his brow, 
his armed cohorts behind him. 

“Why this high romping in a church?” His piety is 
shocked. The boys hasten out and the sacristan, after 
explaining the cause—the good news—would follow — 
after, but Scarpia bids him stay. Scarpia, black-garbed 
but resplendent in satin and laces, a sword at his side 
and satan in his heart, bids his soldiers search the church 
and guard it, allowing no one to leave. ‘The escaped 
prisoner has been traced to this building. 

The affrighted sacristan then is questioned—is asked 
which chapel belongs to the Attavanti. The old man, 
showing the gate, is amazed to find this unlocked and a 
new key sticking in it. Scarpia himself steps inside to 
search the chapel, but soon emerges disappointed at find- 
ing it empty. He has picked up one trophy however—a 
lady’s fan bearing the Attavanti coat-of-arms. Scarpia 
deduces quickly enough that the fair Countess has had a 
hand in her brother’s escape. Then, looking about him, 
he notes the easel and the face on the uncovered canvas. 
He recognizes it, asks the name of the artist working 
here daily; he promptly recognizes, too the name 
Cavaradossi, “the lover of La Tosca!’ How comes it 
that he, in copying a picture of the Madonna, should 
substitute the features of another woman—and that 
woman the fugitive’s sister? Strange indeed! Strange, 
too, that his empty lunch-basket should be found in the 


Ar POSUIA? 709 


unlocked chapel. The sacristan dolefully testifies that 
the basket, a half hour since, was quite full. And why 
is Cavaradossi not here when he presumably should be 
at work? All this Scarpia learns and pieces together 
with a quick comprehension of the fact, that not only 
the sister but also the artist has assisted Angelotti in 
his flight. 

There are various reasons why Scarpia finds a gloating 
joy in the prospect of hounding Cavaradossi; a keener 
relish this will give him than even the capture of the 
escaped prisoner. ‘The only reason he will acknowledge 
however, even to himself, is the fact that the artist is 
known to be an unbeliever, and is already suspicioned by 
the Church. Scarpia is one who curtains his sensuality 
with a noisy barrage of sanctimoniousness. 

From the moment of Scarpia’s entrance until now the 
music has been dark with recitative, and with underlying 
discords of ominous sequence reminiscent of the frag- 
mentary themes that pictured Angelotti's terror. 

But suddenly the music changes: a memory of the 
love-theme illumines the atmosphere. La Tosca hurries 
in. She has returned to tell Cavaradossi of the sudden 
news that she must sing after the opera, sing for the 
celebration, and they can not get away to their villa as 
they had planned. Dire news, she deems it, and expects 
Cavaradossi to be disappointed as she is. But he is 
gone! She looks about her, searches for him, calls him, 
and then remembers only too quickly his eagerness to 
have her leave him—“so that he could work!” Maledetto! 
What does it mean? 

Scarpia, always the schemer and observer, has con- 
cealed himself behind a pillar. He suddenly decides that 
the fan he has found can serve him as the lost handker- 


80 OPERAMWAN DIS ts LAS 


chief serves Iago. But Scarpia’s designs are even more 
weighted with diablerie than are those of the arch-villain 
of Venice. 

While worshippers at back of the church are gradually 
assembling for the Te Deum, and the chancel bells in 
the orchestra are playing softly with a tranquil per- 
sistence that is blessed and soothing as gentle sunlight, 
Scarpia comes forward and addresses Tosca with a snaky 
sanctity that fairly slobbers. He moistens his fingers 
with holy water and then begs permission to impart the 
benison to her dainty hand. While the soft and hallowed 
campanile plays on, the suave-voiced Scarpia continues 
his reptile way with La Tosca by curve and coil of silken 
words. She hardly sees him—barely heeds him—as he 
commends her piety, so rare among artists and beautiful 
women. 

“You come to pray, while others there are who, posing 
as saints, come here but to meet their lovers.” 

La Tosca hears this. “What do you mean?” she asks 
startled, tho still the gentle ripetando of bell-changes 
give peace to the holy place. But soon they cease—harsh 
jealousy tingles and vibrates through the orchestral bass 
as Scarpia shows Tosca the fan he found. 

“It was on the easel,’ he basely fabricates. ‘The 
lovers must have been disturbed and in their sudden 
flight the lady left her fan.” 

La Tosca grabs it—looks closely and finds, as Scarpia 
intended she should—the crest of the Attavanti. He 
gloatingly watches the effect of his poison-shaft; perhaps 
he listens, too, but one doubts this, for if he heard as we 
do the wrung pain of Tosca’s anguish—as expressed in 
the music—even Scarpia, it would seem, must have 
quailed at his work, and felt pity. A very splendor of 


PENT) SOre SI 


suffering illumines the music, gives a glow to the great 
minor chords that sob’ and throb ‘neath the passionate 
pain of Tosca’s outcry of grief over her lover’s infidelity. 
She imagines him even now fled with the new love to that 
villa in which she had dreamed of spending rapturous 
hours this very night. 

Again we hear the incense-laden song of the Cathedral 
carillon—a Gothic phrase, rigid, pure, austere—while 
hard upon this, like a gargoyle tacked to an aspiring 
arch, Scarpia, the sensualist, closely eyeing Tosca, insinu- 
ates words of comfort. 

“Who has grieved you, fairest lady, that your eyes 
are moist with tears?” He declares he would give his 
life to help her. 

But Tosca does not even hear him. She sees in her 
mind’s eye her lover embracing another. Madness falls 
upon her. They shall not so mock her, in that villa of 
her heart’s desire. Torn discords, violently wrenched 
from the full chordal structure that might have spelled 
harmony, now speed across the musical firmament: 
storm-clouds hurrying gloom upon the earth, and 
destruction. Tosca stares at the picture he was painting— 
that blue-eyed Madonna!—the siren of his choice! The 
storm breaks, the tumbling discords shatter the earth. 

“You shall not have him! I swear it!’ 

“You swear—in a church!” The exultant Scarpia 
enacts shocked piety. | 

Poor Tosca weeps. ‘God forgive me!” she cries. The 
sorrow and deep wound, always the ultimate note of 
jealousy, again permeates the orchestra while the love- 
theme, that first sweet duo of happiness, is mockingly 
echoed as Tosca rushes out, maddened by memory and 
grief. 


82 OPERATAIND Tasks tak. 


Scarpia has achieved his purpose; at least one of them. 
He bids his officers follow La Tosca. He is sure she will 
go straight to the hiding-place of her lover; the jealousy 
he has implanted will drive her there. She knows the 
place; of this Scarpia feels sure. Equally sure is he that 
she as yet knows nothing of the fugitive, the fugitive 
whom Cavaradosst is now concealing. 

The officers make a hurried exit after receiving their 
orders and being told to report the result to Scarpia that 
night at the palace. Scarpia will be there because of the 
celebration. But just now he is in a church, tho he 
takes little cognizance of this; his thoughts are wholly 
absorbed by La Tosca. 

The great music of the Te Deum begins, the organ 
peals ; a kneeling crowd is near the altar at back of stage; 
the Cardinal and procession are seen to enter. ‘There is 
everywhere the splendor and majesty that accompanies, 
or should accompany, the acclaim of the multitude when 
assembled together to give glory to God. 

But Scarpia thinks only of Tosca. He believes there 
is now room in her heart—for Scarpia. By the jealousy 
he has aroused he will win her for himself. He does 
pause a moment to note his surroundings. When the 
Cardinal blesses the crowd, Scarpia momentarily bows 
his head with all needed reverence. 

The service goes on: “Adjutorum nostrum in nomtne 
Domini” with the chanted antiphon of those clear-voiced 
choir-boys, orderly now, white-robed and angelic. 

An occasional boom from a distant cannon tells of the 
rejoicing abroad throughout the whole city because of 
the recent victory. | 

The organ-tones, with far-reaching throb of solemn 
magnificence, seem to hold together with sheltering wings 


SPA TDOSCAy 83 


the straining instruments of the orchestra and the mount- 
ing chant of voices. And through it all there is heard, 
ever and again, the cogitating phrases of Scarpia, breath- 
ing words of vile desire for La Tosca. He plans to 
bring her to his arms and her lover to the scaffold. 

Thus he muses one moment, and the next bethinks 
him to join in singing with seeming religious fervor: 
“Te zternum Patrem omnia,’ etc. Truly symphonic is 
this final scene, and those who have an ear to hear the 
majesty and meaning of it all may find in it food for 
thought, for wonderment and awe. 

Counterpoint, the art of weaving divergent but simul- 
taneous melodies into one harmonious whole, is an art 
so difficult and great that, as one authority has stated, it 
never yet has been actually and adequately achieved. 
And good reason there is to say this for it is indeed the 
art of the Divinity. He alone is the master of counter- 
point. He alone can make all things, all thoughts, all 
sounds work together for good. One is minded, in this 
great finale of the first act of “La Tosca,” of the Awful 
Mystery of Harmony which, in a way, is the Mystery 
of God. 

In this music we hear panting discords and also intrud- 
ing single notes that jar against the neighboring ones— 
but they come and go—nothing lasts, tho the singing boy 
who chants carols must cringe if he hearkens to the close- 
by pervert tones of Scarpia. Surely there is naught 
about us but cacophony—the listening boy might think. 
But if he sings well and firmly his part he will have no 
time to heed his jarring neighbors. And this is well, for 
it is beyond him to hear the mighty up-swelling ensemble, 
so timed and planned by the Great Composer that har- 
mony, superb, absolving, uplifting, fills the universe for 


84 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


those who have ears to hear; fills it with the great bene- 
ficence of a high and conquering climax. 

A room in the royal palace—Baron Scarpia’s private 
apartment—is the setting of “La Tosca’s” second act. 
Lighted candles tell us that the hour is late. The heavy- 
lidded, luxury-loving libertine, magnificently garbed, is 
seated at a little table eating a tardy supper and while he 
eats, very exquisitely, a taste of fruit, a sip of wine, a 
petit gateau, he is absorbed in thought. His occasional 
words reveal the trend of his revery. La Tosca—and 
again La Tosca. Much mention, too, is made of her 
lover, Cavaradossi—almost caught in the act of assist- 
ing an escaped prisoner. Scarpia hopes by morning to 
have both of these, the prisoner and the painter, hanging 
upon his tallest gallows-tree. 

But the music, even more than the words, imparts to 
us the evil suspense, the tigerish waiting, of this spying, 
prying, licentious grandee. He sees tense moments 
ahead of him; the cautious, creeping culmination of his 
plans. There is frank impatience in the orchestra— 
unruly sequences pulling at the conductor’s baton, a 
scatterment of octaves tossed here and tossed there—all 
a clear enunciation of the moods and torments of 
sensuality. 

Scarpia rings a bell on his table. A soldier appears 
and is asked whether La Tosca has yet arrived for the 
cantata. They are awaiting her, we learn—she is late; 
they have sent for her. Scarpia bids the soldier-lackey 
open the window while he, going to the other side of 
the room, seats himself at a gilded desk to pen a brief 
note. 

The large French window opens on to a courtyard in 
the palace, and as its swinging panes are flung wide we 


ETAUITOSGAY 8s 


hear from the halls below the exquisite strains of a 
gavotte; there is dancing before the Jubilee-Cantata is 
sung. Scarpia’s turbulent discords and octaves are for 
the moment wiped out as the frail flower of this bygone 
dance wafts its memory lovingly to us. 

Ah! but those days were good in spite of the “Scarpias”’ 
and the Inquisition. Those were dream-days, fine-edged 
and fraught with beauty—the days when custom decreed 
the tempered dance, the grace and courtesy that goes 
with sweet music. 

You can judge a race and an era by its dance-music. 
The Hottentot’s tomtom tells all one needs to know of 
that people. The wild glowing beauty of the Hungarian 
ecardas makes you at once feel the pulsing splendor of 
that race. The noisy Russian dumka sounds a suffering 
revolt that still expresses something of majesty in its 
very savagery. The slow temple-dance of the Hindus has 
in it a soft and sinuous danger but, even so, praise God! 
there 1s beauty clinging to it; a beauty undeniable, slum- 
bering and exotic. But what in high Heaven’s name can 
we hope for from a people that grovels its dance-tunes to 
the level of jazz! Dire indeed must be the doom that 
will fall upon souls so darkened that they can endure 
this monstrosity of cacophony; not only endure, but 
sufficiently delight in its blasts of rasping awfulness to 
prance and caper and hop to its hot shots of pervert 
rhythm. ‘“Adjutorum nostrum in nomini Domini!’ 
“God pity us” indeed. 

But to return to the Pallazio Farnese and the seven- 
teenth century. Whatever of impurity flourished there 
and then it was not nourished, incited and upheld 
by the dance-music of the day. Evil hearts there were 
then, as now, but music was esteemed as an art divine, 


86 OPERA PAN aS i ak 


born of heaven and ever fragrant with the breath of 
celestial spaces. 

Scarpia, let us note, pays no heed to the gentle har- 
mony the opened window admits. Instead of listening 
to the tender appeal of that simple, happy-hearted gavotte 
sounding forth from a little group of earnest, honest 
stringed instruments, well-made and well-played upon, 
Scarpia persists in his devilish purpose. He writes a 
decoy note to La Tosca, and bids his attendant bring her 
hither as soon as the Cantata is finished. 

“She will come,’ he gleefully assures himself as 
Sciarrone, the soldier, goes out. “She will come for the 
sake of her Mario!” 

The gavotte has now ended and Scarpua, still absorbed 
in pleasant thoughts, sings the equivalent of what, in 
old-time Grand Opera, would be called the leading bary- 
tone aria. But modern operas cling close to realism; 
the singer does not step to the footlights and fling his 
high notes to the gallery. In this instance Scarpia, re- 
seated at the table, appears to be merely thinking aloud, 
all unconscious, it would seem, that his evil phrases are 
carefully noted and that a horde of busy instruments are 
keeping pace and following after every thought he utters. — 
There is symbolism here—truth aplenty. All our 
thoughts, unknown to us, attract and hold close a hover- 
ing company of vibrant spirits that make for us harmony 
or discord as the temper of our thoughts decree. 

This song-soliloquy of Scarpia’s is a libidinous state- 
ment of his fleshly philosophy: “TI strive for the thing I 
desire; I possess it and then discard it, turning to other 
pleasures.”’ 

Puccini has furnished phrases here that are erratic, 
impressive and adequate, full of modulations. Even 


uA TTOSCAY Re 


villainy has climactic heights. The solo ends fortissimo 
and “allargando,” with a reiteration in the orchestra of 
the bleak uncompromising octave-theme that opens this 
second act, and unmistakably spells Scarpra—the grim 
desolation of his soul. 

Sciarrone now hurriedly reenters, announcing the 
return of Spoletta, the police-agent who in the previous 
act was told to follow Tosca as she left the church. 
Scarpia eagerly orders him shown in. Spoletta, promptly 
admitted, makes concise report of tracking Tosca to a 
suburban villa. (A familiar theme in the orchestra identi- 
fies that villa for us, did we have any uncertainty about 
it.) She was seen to enter, then soon to come out again, 
whereupon Spoletta and his men searched the house but 
failed to find the fled prisoner. 

A fury of curses follows this announcement. Scarpia 
threatens Spoletta with the gallows—until he calms down 
enough to hear the further news. There was another 
man found in the villa—his name, Cavaradossi—an 
artist, and so suspicious and insolent were his replies to 
all of their questions that Spoletta has thought best to 
bring him thither, bound and manacled. 

This cheering addendum to Spoletta’s report promptly 
loosens the looming rope from his endangered neck, and 
dangles it over Cavaradosst. There is a new and ominous 
theme in the orchestra as mention is made of Cavaradossi 
in chains; a slight thing of single tones, weak-voiced and 
almost naked of harmonic clothing—a gaunt, anguished, 
submerged theme—but feeble as it is, you know it to be 
wrung, wrenched and drenched with pain. Call it, if 
you will, the theme of Fate, its woe will later on be 
pounded jnto your brain and heart till you tremble and 
gasp neath its suffocating weight. But just now it is 


RR i OPERA AND ITS STARS 


inert and barely audible, and you give it no heed at all 
for you are listening instead to something far more 
pleasing. Scarpia is listening, too, as through the open 
window there floats upon the air a sound as of choiring 
angels—the sweet fair harmonies of the cantata, just 
begun. La Tosca is heard singing with it. 

Oh! It is a rapturous effect! Bravo Sardou, for 
devising it, and bravissimo Puccini, for the writing of 
this dear, tender, ecclesiastical, three-part cantata to be 
sung afar off and above a dire play of emotions, in 
orchestra, voice and action, that quakes with the panting 
breath of passion, lust, and murder. We listen to those 
distant harmonies and are minded of heaven. Scarpia 
listens and he, too, sees a light, but it is not from 
heaven; an idea flashes upon him, but its glow is from 
below. The mind, so tended and so bent, will somehow 
find hell where others find heaven. 

Now joyed and exultant from the bright demon-plan 
suddenly schemed in his brain, Scarpia summons _ the 
manacled prisoner before him; also the official judge 
empowered to take testimony from prisoners who are 
forcibly impelled to loquacity. 

Cavaradosst and his jailers soon enter while still 
through the window sounds the glad high-pealing cantata, 
and still in the orchestra wails that sobbing, tense, and 
quivering Fate-theme. It is a pulsing moment, this, when 
Cavaradosst enters; but it is only the beginning, a mere 
foreshadowing of the black, palling terror ahead. 

Very quickly the scene begins, and with elaborate 
courtesy on Scarpia’s part. He bids the prisoner be 
seated. A haughty “no, thank you,” is the reply, and 
then the two face each other in a gripping, clenched 


“LA TOSCA” 80 


silence as they hearken—both of them—to La Tosca’s 
soaring voice in the cantata. 

A moment later Scarpia forces himself to his painful 
duty. With apparent reluctance, but a gloating heart, 
he tells Cavaradossi the cause of his arrest: that it is 
known he has assisted a dangerous criminal to escape. 
He now 1s asked to tell where that prisoner is concealed. 
Cavaradosst denies everything, insists he knows nothing, 
in spite of the minute details, the clear circumstantial 
evidence that his accuser and the gendarmes have against 
him. Very quietly and firmly the known facts are stated 
by Scarpia, and very steadily and stubbornly they are 
denied by the prisoner—while still the mounting cantata, 
dim, divine, sublime, spires heavenward with praise to 
God. And still deep down in the orchestra that muted 
torture-theme tears at our hearts and ever and again 
creeps its way into prominence. 

Scarpia finally changes his tone. He threatens, grows 
angry, and flings rapid questions, each one quickly 
answered by Cavaradossi, sometimes with an insolent 
laugh. Wrought up at last to the point of action, and 
annoyed for the moment by the distant singing, Scarpia 
cuts this off by a brusque closing of the window. Then 
he asks again—once, twice, three times—‘where is 
Angelotti?’’—and as many times he receives the answer: 
“T do not know.” 

The music is no longer subdued. Discords, the wild 
weeds of harmony, have sprouted and grown thick amid 
heaving tremolos that suggest a furrowed earth. Then 
a sudden change in the tonal mood proclaims the coming 
of La Tosca. She hurries in, startled, alarmed—sees her 
lover—cries out his name, “Mario!” and rushes to his 
arms, manacled tho they be. In the swift moment of 


go OPE RAWAM GS tS 1h 


that embrace he charges her in a determined aside to say 
no word of what she has seen at the villa. “Admit noth- 
ing.’ She nods understandingly and promises to obey. 

Scarpia—all his assumed patience now vanished— 
announces icily: “The Judge is waiting, Cavaradossi, to 
take your deposition.” A secret door is flung open; the 
prisoner and the guards pass through it. 

Something, too, is suddenly flung loose in the orches- 
tra—the torture theme! No longer a thing of single 
tones, bare and cringing, it now is robed in full array 
of somber, darkling chords that trail their way of gloom 
in ponderous awfulness across the scene; a monstrous 
Nemesis dominating for the moment all creation. One 
senses the vastness of a final doom, an ultimate omega, 
the formless void that once was, and that again may be. 

But such visions of immensity are fleeting. We glimpse 
and gasp, and then—a closed door. This occurs just 
now both in fancy and fact. The door of the torture- 
chamber is closed upon Cavaradosst, the gendarmes, and 
the judge. La Tosca and Scarpia are left alone. Like 
panther and prey they eye each other—Tosca as yet 
undismayed—Scarpia cat-like and calm, with the cool 
confidence of certain victory. It is all told plainly in 
the music before ever the participants utter a word. 

Very quietly the instruments feel their way about till 
they find and clutch onto and develop a theme and rhythm 
so fitting in its decoying grace and suavity that one 
shivers and sits straight, all tense with apprehension, know- 
ing as we do what Tosca has promised and what Scarpia 
intends. He now adopts the passing theme—those insinu- 
ating triads in languid tempo. di valse—to carry forward 
his wily words. A courtly salon scene done in music, 
delicate and graceful as a Dresden china group, is the 


FUN SNOSOAT QI 


present brief play of tort and retort between Scarpia 
and his victim. He bids her to be seated while they 
have a friendly talk, bids her have no fear. She professes 
calm indifference; declares she has naught to conceal. He 
questions—oh, so gently—she replies with equal quiet; 
their every phrase modeled upon that slyly, sleepy waltz- 
theme in the orchestra. 

Then a change. Scarpia calls through the closed door: 
“What says the Cavalier?’ The gendarme replies: 
“Nothing.” An order is now given to “make the pressure 
stronger.’ Tosca hears and wonders, demands to know 
what is happening behind that closed door. Then 
Scarpia brutally tells her the law is being enforced: a 
steel filet binds her lover’s head and is tightened more 
and more till the blood spurts forth and the torture is 
unbearable. , 

“But you—you can end his pain by telling me where 
is Angelotti.” 

Tosca cringes and shrieks at his fiendish plot, but 
denies all knowledge of Angelotti. The orchestra bites 
and snarls in a squirming entanglement of new themes 
and old. Cavaradossi is heard crying out with pain, and 
with every tightening of the torturing steel, there is 
ground out in the orchestra—scraped and sawed out—a 
merciless theme, ponderous, immutable, calmly crushing— 
propelling, then receding—with the deadly accuracy and 
majestic indifference of iron wheels, huge, smooth and 
glibly turning. 

Again and again this crunching, grinding theme in 
the orchestra alternates with La Tosca’s voice as she 
pleads for mercy in an out-crying theme of her own that 
pierces to all hearts—to high heaven—in its splendor of 


92 ORERAVAND TI ESi> PAS 


intensity and melodic sweep. But it does not reach the 
heart of Scarpia; only cold steel can do that. 

He sardonically maintains his silky graciousness of 
manner and music as he grants Tosca permission to 
speak to her lover through the door, during the interims 
of torture. He even opens the door that she may see 
the sufferer, his lacerated brow and white, drawn face; 
all of this agony she is assured, again and again, she can 
instantly halt by telling where Angelotti is concealed. 
But Cavaradossi still charges her in cryptic asides to 
guard the secret—tell nothing. 

The door is again closed and the torture is resumed. 
That theme of iron in the orchestra plows forward again, 
while poor Tosca rails and wails at her demon tormentor. 
She withholds the secret, still declaring she knows noth- 
ing, until Scarpia, infuriated and determined, gives final 
orders to the gendarmes—orders well understood: “Force 
him to speak.” 

A sharp outcry of unthinkable pain soon sounds from 
the closed room, a cry so rending that it promptly unseals 
poor Tosca’s lips. 

“Angelotti is hiding in the well,’ she murmurs, as 
Scarpia stands waiting and ready to give the signal for 
her lover’s release from the rack. 

He is presently brought in half-fainting, the great and 
dolorous first torture-theme accompanying him as he 
enters. La Tosca rushes to him, happy that he still lives, 
and all-unheeding the gloom of that torture-theme, that 
sullen foreshadow of Fate. 

The shadow enlarges quickly. She is not long allowed 
to ignore it. Cavaradossi, faint as he is, rejoices too, 
not only because he lives and finds her at his side, but 
because he did not succumb and betray his friend—the 


HPAL POSGA® 93 


friend whose cause he favors—leader of the Rebellion 
he would gladly have seen triumphant. 

Scarpia, with evident relish for the dramatic situation 
he has contrived, chooses this moment to give orders 
for the capture of Angelotti at the villa. “You will find 
him in the old well.” 

Cavaradossi rises up like a struck lion. He flings Tosca 
from him, enraged that she has revealed the secret. The 
Angelotti discords pound their way snarlingly in the 
orchestra—show their teeth—growl and howl at all 
creation as Cavaradossi storms over the betrayal of his 
friend. He is all unmindful of La Tosca’s anguish, the 
suffering love that prompted her disclosure; the impulse 
to save his life when she believed him tortured to the 
point of death. He pities only his friend—not the woman 
whose love and devotion are far more deserving than 
that of his friend. 

La Tosca is the star of this opera—not Cavaradosst. 
He is considerable of a fool from first to last. He starts 
out by transferring to his canvas the face of a blonde 
beauty instead of the old master’s model he was supposed 
to be copying, and he expects his Tosca to be undisturbed 
by this preference on his part. Then he rates friendship 
so superlatively high that he unhesitatingly dismisses his 
loved one from the church, almost curtly, and without 
explanation. This, too, he expects her to endure with 
equanimity. And now he casts her from him—actually 
curses her—for betraying his friend, tho her action was 
prompted by profoundest love. At this moment sudden 
news is brought to the Palace. Sciarrone rushes in 
excitedly to tell it—a message just come from the front. 
The recent victory has been celebrated too soon—Bona- 


94 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


parte has turned it into defeat. He has conquered at 
Marengo. Italy has lost. 

Cavaradosst, by way of final folly, now betrays his 
aversion to the government by hurrahing at this news. 
Poor Tosca tries to stop him, urges him to silence, if 
only for her sake. But it takes more than love to hush 
a fool enthusiast. He shouts exultantly: ‘Victory! 
Victory! Now let the tyrants quake!” 

There is just one bit of excuse, one mitigating urge, 
to explain this senseless outburst. Puccini has created 
for him a revolutionary hymn so fiery in its climax that 
it would arouse any mob to violence—any fool to 
frenzy—be the cause what it may. Those mighty chords, 
solemn, monumental, up-mounting, surge on in sweeping 
rhythm like the prayer of a seething multitude storming 
Heaven with insistent cry. It is splendid and magnificent, 
but very naturally sounds the knell for Cavaradossi. 

Scarpia orders him off to prison. The gendarmes 
drag him away from Tosca’s restraining arms. She 
wishes to go with him to prison—such is woman’s love— 
but Scarpia closes the door and orders her to stay. Then 
in an instant authority, barbarity, those dogs of war and 
lust, are kennelled; the panther’s claws are sheathed, tho 
Tosca still eyes her inquisitor with the terror of a 
trapped mouse. But this similitude soon changes as the 
chameleon qualities of womankind enable her gradually 
to assume something of the feline herself. 

Again there is bated tort and retort between them, 
spiced with a satanic repose, as Scarpia, cool, elegant and 
courteous, pours wine for La Tosca—bids her be seated 
as he resumes his supper, and proposes another friendly 
little talk with her. That purring waltz-theme resumes 
sway in the orchestra, makes itself at home, settles down 


SAU LOSGAT 9s 


as it were for a cozy, quiet little hour, when, suddenly, a 
sharp scratch from the leashed tigress—that is Tosca, 
gives a phosphorescent glow to the scene and the music. 
She has taken the seat offered her, wearily sipped of the 
wine, then without warning she leans across the table 
and asks in contemptuous, hissing parlando: “How 
much?’ It is a brave, desperate lunge on her part. She 
has jewels and money, has always been well-paid for 
her singing; she will bribe this heartless official. Scruples, 
she is sure, he has none. She is right, he scruples at 
nothing. He frankly admits this, calmly and with the 
inimitable repose of a waiting cat who knows that the 
hole he has seen the mouse enter is without other exit 
than the one he is watching. 

Accompanied by a theme that is positively slumbrous 
in its suave and restful progressions, Scarpia informs 
Tosca that when he sells himself—sells his fealty to 
office to ladies fair—he must be paid in coin far weight- 
ier than paltry sums of money. 

Yes, he has a price, a price by which she can save 
her lover. 

He tells her he has long waited for this hour. He 
knows that she hates him, but her very hatred makes him 
love her. Monstrous perversion! The music is turbulent 
now, a brew of unholy discords and affrighted tremolos, 
as La Tosca shivers back in horror at the lascivious 
utterance of this vilest of arch-villains: “I have vowed 
you shall be mine—wholly mine!’ 

Tosca rushes to the window threatening to fling herself 
from it. Her tones soar out in the familiar theme of her 
plea for mercy when Cavaradossi was being tortured. 
This alternates now with Scarpia’s hellish theme of lust- 
ful purpose. 


06 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


At her suggestion of suicide, he announces that her 
lover’s life hangs upon her act. She rushes to the door, 
suddenly minded to appeal to the Queen. Scarpia per- 
ceives her purpose and calmly bids her. go if she will; 
but he adds that the Queen’s pardon will not much benefit 
a dead man. The more Tosca loathes him, reviles him— 
calls him demon, coward, satyr, villain—the more he 
urges, pursues, and declares that her anger but adds to 
her beauty and intensifies his love. 

In genuine terror she calls for help. But her cry is 
unheard for a new sound intrudes upon them; both she 
and Scarpia give pause to listen. A drum, solemnly 
tapped, is heard approaching. 

Again resuming his fine-polished, damnable repose, 
Scarpia quietly informs her that the drum-beats accom- 
pany the escort of the men who are on their way to the 
scaffold. Tosca sinks back wearily upon the sofa, as 
Scarpia, glancing through the window, announces further 
that his men right now are raising the gibbet. 

Still those drum-beats. Nothing else for a moment; 
then another quiet word from Scarpia: 

“Tt is, I take it, your will that Cavaradossi dies within 
an hour?” 

Hideous silence fills the air as Scarpia, his eyes evilly 
fixed on Tosca—complacently pours himself a small cup 
of coffee and placidly drinks of it. 

Tosca does not move. She seems as one stunned. She 
can no longer think. There is but one thing she knows, 
one thing she can do. When all else is numbed with 
suffering, there still stirs in La Tosca—Rome’s leading 
prima donna—her life-long habit of song. Music flutters 
to her lips, she sings to herself—lariats her panic thoughts 
by the firm rhythmic swing of a far-reaching melody. 


EBATTOSCA RM 97 


Scarpa listens, as we all do, and the orchestra too; tho 
it listens merely to follow after, faintly and tenderly, 
with a touching harmony, this heart-cry of poor, beaten 
crushed and harrowed Tosca. It is the high moment in 
the opera for the soprano role. “Vissi d’Arte’ is the 
name of this meditative aria. ‘Devoted to art and to 
love I have never done anyone wrong, have always been 
kind to the poor, always faithful in prayer; O why, 
Heavenly Father, dost thou now forsake me?’ These 
are the words, freely translated, of this most famous of 
Puccini's arias. 

Madame Jeritza fairly startled the world, and shook 
some of the stars by singing the entire composition 
while lying supine and exhausted on the floor! Tho 
some there be who have questioned the art and 
good taste of so daring an innovation, none can 
deny that as a feat of vocal endurance it can hardly be 
surpassed. To toss from your mouth tones that reach 
the heart of your audience, when you are facing it only 
with the top of your head as you lie stretched out on the 
floor, is an achievement in tone-balancing truly acrobatic. 
But with no effort at all Madame Jeritza accomplishes 
this astounding fling of realism, this effect of don’t-care 
despair on the part of poor Tosca. Pianissimo but pene- 
trating, her glorious voice fills every part of the great 
Metropolitan auditorium. 

Heavy with tears seem the child-like cao of this 
melody at first, or the weakened cries of a wounded 
bird, but at the last they mount high and break forth 
into a reckless bruised beating of wings at the closed 
gate of fate. 

There is a quick subsidence—a panting sob and a 


98 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


pause—then the unmoved voice of Scarpia: “Make your 
decision, Tosca.” 

She kneels now before him, entreats him to have 
mercy. But whatever she does seems only to add to 
the misery of her plight. Wiuth tear-wet eyes and tumbled 
hair she is “far too lovely to be resisted,’ the scheming 
Scarpia sweetly assures her. There is a recurrence in 
the orchestra of that slumbrous theme of evil charm— 
the very psychic aura of Scarpia—a theme that could 
bite and corrode at the heart of all existing morality. 
With bestial frankness he reiterates his terms: her lover’s 
life for one brief hour of her favor. Again she spurns 
him. “Go, villain—you make me shudder!” 

A knock at the door and a hurried entrance of Spoletta. 
Again important news. He reports that Angelotti, on 
finding himself captured, swallowed poison, and is dead. 

“Hang his corpse on the gibbet,” is the cool reply. 
Then Spoletta inquires what shall be done with the 
artist, Cavaradossi, still in chains. 

Scarpia turns to Tosca, now seated on the sofa, de- 
jected, despairing, forlorn. 

“What say your” he asks of her meaningly. There 
is a pause in the music. J sometimes think there are 
strange, startled moments when all creation gives pause, 
holds bated breath, for a single soul that is swinging in 
the balance. Whether Tosca does ill or well it is not 
for us to know. We only know—in that awful pause— 
that Tosca nods assent. 

But now, the die once cast, she becomes alert, thinks 
quickly, and strives to make a sharp bargain. Cavaradossi 
must be released at once. Scarpa explains to her, with 
ghastly graciousness, that this in effect shall be done 
within an hour, but it must be accomplished secretly. It 


“TA TOSCA” 99 


must be reported that he is dead. His crime of assisting 
a fugitive revolutionist requires this, but the report will 
be false, the execution only simulated. This has been 
done in rare cases before. 

“Spoletta can be trusted. You yourself can hear me 
give the order, and you yourself shall carry the news to 
Cavaradossi—shall tell him of the unloaded guns he 
will face for a moment—a mere pretense, before he flees 
the province.” 

Thus assured, La Tosca numbly listens while Scarpia 
with significant tone and glance bids Spoletta carry out 
the execution of Cavaradossi, as it was done in the case 
of Palmieri. “Simulated, you understand, as we did 
with Palmieri.” 

Spoletta understands perfectly, nods his head wisely 
and goes out. 

The door again closed, Scarpia flings aside his official 
bearing and approaches Tosca with leering words and 
glowing glance. “I have fulfilled my part of the bargain.” 
But his victim, again alert, makes quick reply: “‘Not yet. 
You must give us a safe conduct to leave the country.” 

With his wonted excrescence of graciousness, putrid 
politeness, Scarpia bows assent and crosses the room to 
his desk where he correctly fills out the needed permit. 

During the interim of his writing, Tosca, knowing 
that her last card has been played, steps wearily to the 
neglected supper table; she sips a glass of wine, and 
observes languidly, inertly, then with slow-forming pur- 
pose, a sharp-pointed knife on the table. Mark well the 
theme now possessing the instruments; it is vivid as a 
spoken soliloquy. 

Before Scarpia turns with the signed paper in his 
hand, Tosca has seized the knife and holds it behind her. 


100 OPERAVAND TTSr5TARS 


He comes hastily forward, a smile on his lips, his baleful 
charm-theme in the orchestra—with outstretched arms 
he comes to embrace her. A quick stab of steel is the 
caress he receives. 

Seething frenzy fills the orchestral bowl, pagan dis- 
cords—pitiless, defiant—tear at each other as Tosca 
leans over the fallen Scarpia, brandishing the dripping 
knife—mocking him in his death-struggle—shrieking at 
him a defiant joy in his choking agony—his well-deserved 
end—her vengeance! But no madness of words can 
equal the accumulated torment of tones in the orchestra. 
After much violent clashing they at last simmer down 
to a frank, unabashed propounding of the whole-tone 
scale in creaking thirds. Twelve cold-blooded brazen 
measures of this chop-stick awfulness is ample to express 
any manner of dementia. 3 

By the time these untamed, untuned, trailing thirds 
have gasped themselves into silence—as Scarpia too has 
done—Tosca comes to her senses, all five of them, fully 
awake and keen. After seeing that Scarpia is thoroughly 
dead, her first words, woman-like, are a kindly assurance 
to the departed: 

“Now I forgive you!” 

The strange, hushed, soliloquizing theme that tiptoed 
about in the orchestra when she stood at the table and 
first saw the knife—first gently contemplated the appeal- 
ing thought of murder—now again rules the instruments. 
There is deep psychology in this theme; it is one of the 
most direct, simple, and comprehensive themes in the 
opera. The underlying occasion for its straightforward 
simplicity lies in the fact that as a rule, there is no awful- 
ness to the impending deed in the eyes of the prospective 
murderer ; it seems to him at the time the one alternative, 





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the one sane thing to do; its true proportions have not 
appeared to him. Immediately afterwards, and for a 
short time following, delirium still holds sway, and also 
a sweet quietus from the unbearable emotion, whatever 
it was, that impelled the act. 

So Tosca, numbed to all feeling save the relapse from 
fear, moves about calmly in this horror-chamber in accord 
with that tranquil, contented, reassuring theme in the 
orchestra. Her mind works clearly. She pours water 
from a glass on the table to rinse her finger-tips. She 
bethinks herself to unclasp from the dead man’s hand 
the needed paper he had just signed. Then to prove her 
forgiveness of him, now that he is dead, she reverently 
places two lighted candles on the floor beside him in 
accord with the custom of her church—one may be a 
murderer and still a Christian—thus unlogical is the 
strange unreason of a fear-frenzied brain in its hour of 
tense strain. She sees a crucifix on the wall, climbs ona 
chair to get it—poor little, dazed little murderess that 
she is—and she places the crucifix on the dead man’s 
breast. | 

The quiet sustaining theme has grown fainter now. 
There is scarcely a sound in the orchestra. The breath 
of death seems to exude and envelop the darkened stage 
with its dim two candles guarding the outstretched figure 
on the floor. 

Tiptoeing her way, La Tosca takes up her cloak, steps 
to the door—opens it partly and looks to see that none 
are near—then silently slips out, closing the door behind 
het. 


Historic San Angelo, facing the Eternal City, this 
grim, brooding castle on the Tiber, has served as the 


102 OPERAPAND TESTS TARS 


gateway to Heaven or hell to all doomed prisoners of 
Rome throughout the centuries of political uprisings and 
down-fallings. Tragedies untold have been enacted 
upon its sullen parapets, many of them unnoted, unsung, 
merely because they were so commonplace. One of 
these, or the similitude of one, we now see unfolded in 
the third act of this Puccini opera. 

We see a somber stage-setting. There are bright 
stars above, and a sunken stairway at one side suggests 
dark cells beneath this embrasured platform of the 
gloomy castle. In the background, beyond the crenellated 
wall, in the dim brightness of the night we see sleeping 
Rome, or part of it, with the Vatican and the Basilica 
plainly outlined. There is a little table on the stage, 
with a lantern above it, and a bench beside it. Nearby 
a crucifix hangs on the wall and a votive light. Nothing 
else to be seen; nothing moves—save the music. Faint 
stirrings of the night may be heard—or call it if you 
like, the stillness of the dawn—for never, that I know 
of, has stillness been so marvelously sounded. Puccini 
is a wizard in the first half of this last act of ‘““La Tosca.” 
This orchestral prelude, after the curtain rises, positively 
frets one with its twanging, resounding portrayal of 
silence—for the most part pianissimo, it still does not 
balk at a crescendo, a frank fortissimo, which neverthe- 
less by some unhallowed necromancy, never for a moment 
shatters the pervading hush of the night. The effect is 
for the most part achieved by soft-stepping sequences 
of consecutive fifths, a veritable covey of contraband 
discords, brazen enough, however muted, to make the 
all-righteous Beethoven shiver in his shroud. But, by 
foul means or fair, Puccini gets his effect tho we shudder 


SAMTOS@Ag 103 


in our seats at the gloom and dark foreboding of that 
pregnant silence so mercilessly sounded. 

While harmony is tossed to the winds, rhythm remains 
ever dominant, tho varying, it may be, as the waves of 
the sea. We are drenched, submerged, uplifted and 
exhilarated by Puccini’s unending divergencies of 
rhythms. They beat upon us resistlessly and compelling. 
There are strange undercurrents of rhythms that counter 
great billowing upheavals, then, in turn, complacently 
roll over and through them, but always and ever, as in 
life itself, we sense the great unerring pulse of time. 
Thus intricate and marvelous is music—great music— 
marvelous in its way as the eternal cosmos, for it is, 
of all arts, the Divine one. 

While still the stage is dark and we are tense with the 
pall of those whispering discords, others are added unto 
them: the jangle of distant sheep-bells are heard, and 
then a melancholy shepherd lad, leading his flock through 
the silent streets, croons a despairing love-song. Heaven 
pity us! How despondent that lone boy is! We could 
swear he himself, single-voiced, was singing a wail of 
consecutive fifths! He pipes such a drone of discordant 
misery. 


“Tf you could prize me—to live I might try. 
If you despise me—I may as well die.” 


Maybe he thinks he is singing a tune—poor, untutored 
lad, alone with his sheep in the dank, drear darkness 
that ushers in the dawn. Frankly his music is a rare 
portrayal of uncouth utterance, but plaintive and appeal- 
ing, however crude, by the sheer vital force of its verity. 

With the passing of his song a new sound intrudes— 


104. OPERA VANDT Torok 


and the Eastern sky shows a shimmer of dim gray. A 
distant bell is heard, faint but insistent—self-important 
in fact, for it is the matin bell of a busy church. There 
are many of these in Rome. Soon another is sounding, 
then another, some nearer, some farther away, and— 
let me tell you—those bells proceed on their appointed 
way, delightfully and prodigiously unconscious of each 
other! When one in the west is comfortably pealing 
B flat, there is one in the east energetically hanging on 
A flat, and presently another will ring in with £& natural, 
and next thing you know D natural from somewhere 
toward Pisa is sounding in whole-heartedly and un- 
abashed. But after that shepherd song nothing whatever 
in the way of tone philandering can disturb us. The 
bells are mellow and distant, ‘‘sweet bells’ indeed, tho 
most emphatically “jangling out of tune’—as in reality 
a whole city full must do. But sure I am that the over- 
tones of all the church-bells in the world mount Heaven- 
ward in sweetest unison. ‘The exquisite mystery, the 
ultimate blending, of the overtones of sound, is a secret 
that only God knows. | 

But to return to the bells of dawn on the Roman 
Campagna. Puccini has jotted them down as he heard 
them, and then turned them loose, disregarding them 
entirely while he busied himself with his orchestra where 
he has deftly fished up on the strings a brand-new 
rhythm and a slender new theme. The bells are now 
very far away and the music all is gray and pensive as 
the reluctant day so slowly dawning. 

A sleepy jailer now emerges from below slowly ascend- 
ing the little stairway. He lights another lantern, hangs 
it near the crucifix, looks over the parapet to see 
whether the firing-party is yet approaching, then yawn- 


SISA *OSOAY 105 


ing, he sits down on the bench. He really could not 
yawn did he hear the orchestra now. It has changed its 
tune, a new theme has entered—softly, it is true, and 
rallentando—but he who hears this melody is awake— 
torn awake—made to suffer with it, to weep and to 
mourn. One’s very soul sheds tears at the sound of this 
bleeding melody. No greater music has Puccini written 
than these most mighty phrases now stalking into prom- 
inence—first in the orchestra, later on in the voice. 
Unmindful, as humanity ever is, of the beauty and the 
pain all about them—the dawning day and the rending 
music—a picket of infantry comes up the stairs guard- 
ing Cavaradosst. A paper is handed to the jailer, who 
has dutifuly arisen to salute. He opens his registry- 
book—studies the paper for a moment—and the picket- 
sergeant signs in the book. He then leads his group of 
automaton men below stairs again, leaving Cavaradossi 
to self-communion until the fatal moment; they will then 
return with guns all set. 

Cavaradossi and the jailer exchange a few words— 
curt and colorless in themselves, but timed and tuned to 
the tale-bearing sobbing instruments. Cavaradossi wishes 
to write a letter, his last words on earth, if the jailer can 
grant the permission and can promise to have it delivered. 
The present of a ring, from the doomed man’s finger, 
wins from the jailer the desired favor. “Write your 
letter,” he quietly concurs—and then disappears into the 
guard-house, leaving Cavaradosst at the table with pen 
in hand. 

He is writing, of course, to La Tosca. He traces a 
few lines, as the engulfing theme of their first love-song 
sweeps into the orchestra with tidal intensity. Poor 
prisoner of Death! How can he hold himself down to 


nee OPERA AND ITS STARS 


the penning of words—one at a time—when the whole 
book of memory is fluttering before him, its swift- 
turning pages, torn and frayed, caught in a flame, it 
seems—some of them all burned and charred. But one 
page of memory he clasps and clings to. It tells of his 
meetings with Tosca in the little villa—in the garden 
by moonlight when her soft arms clasped him. 

The recent new theme in the orchestra, whose disturb- 
ing power we already know, has again come forward to 
beat at our breast and bear us down under its pitiful 
weight of woe. Not only do the instruments wail and 
sob neath the strain of its tearing heart-break, but the 
singer too, grief-broken, at the little table, alone in the 
gloom of this his last dawn, he too lends his voice, full- 
throated and a-throb with anguish—he too joins in with 
the hushed glory of this inspired theme of music at its 
best. And when that singer was Caruso, no greater 
cry of sorrow ever winged apast the proscenium than 
his final climax and ensuing sob in this supreme aria of 
“La Tosca’: “My dream of love is vanished, and now 
I die despairing.” 

Bowed in tears Cavaradossi does not note the change 
in the music, nor the sound of footsteps.  Spoletta, 
obedient to the orders given him by Scarpia, has admitted 
Tosca to the castle and escorted her to the parapet to 
“warn the prisoner herself,” as Scarpia promised her— 
of the change of plans—the “simulated firing,” etc. 
Tosca is now left alone with her lover save that Spoletta, 
before descending, has cautioned the jailer within the 
guard-house to keep his eye on the two. 

Cavaradosst, still indifferent to all sounds, has not 
raised his head until Tosca—too full for words—suddenly 
places beneath his eyes the paper she secured from 


‘WA TOSCAY 107 


Scarpia—the paper promising freedom and safe conduct 
to Civita Vecchia. The condemned man sees her at 
last—sees the paper; they read the magic words in unison 
together. He is dazed—uncomprehending. 

“But Scarpia!—this sudden mercy!” 

Then she tells him all: Scarpia’s dastardly offer—for a 
price—her final seeming acceptance and then—the knife! 

Traces of Scarpia’s invidious love-theme, the sound of 
the gallows-building, and also the hushed deliberate mus- 
ing theme that marked her forming purpose of murder— 
all these play through the orchestra during Tosca’s tell- 
ing of the terrible deed she has done. 

Cavaradossi mutely takes her hands in his—her “blood- 
reeking hands,” as she calls them—and kisses them. 
Then in utmost tenderness of melody and voice he sings 
of those soft white hands always heretofore so pitiful 
and gentle. It is touching and simple as a child’s lisped 
prayer, this tribute of praise and gratitude—this melody 
he softly sings to the hands that have saved him. 

She hushes his song with her further explanations and 
plans; tells him in tuneful undertone—winsome in its 
happy clarity—how in order that the authorities shall 
believe him dead, there must be a make-believe execution. 
He must stand up and be fired at, but the guns will have 
only blank cartridges. He must fall when they fire, and 
remain still till the soldiers go, then—freedom !—free- 
dom! By means of the paper she holds they can hasten 
to Civita Vecchia. She has her jewels with her and 
money. They can take ship from there and sail away— 
away—to life and love! 

Listen now to the song of the waves—the laughing 
billows in the orchestra, tossing with foam and a salt 
sea breeze. Tho all pianissimo you feel the bounding 


108 OPERAVANDYWUSISTARS 


force of it and have a vague sense that a few pages of 
this vigorous undertow would carry them half-way over 
seas. But tho all things change naught changes so oft 
as the eternally varying sea. The choppy joy of harbor 
wavelets we presently hear transmuted into the placid 
heave of a deep-sea current. It too carries you on and 
away; the lovers sway with the rapture it breathes; 
they sail on a bark of hope, as first one then the other 
sings in sweet exaltation of the joy that awaits them. 
O, dear delusion of happy harmonies and pulsing harp- 
chords! Like the sure repose of a swimmer afloat on 
a sunlit sea is the peace of this last duet. 

Tosca pauses to instruct him again, almost merrily, 
jestingly, how to enact his part, how to fall when they 
fire, and how under no circumstances must he move until 
she tells him they are gone. He promises, with equal 
buoyancy, to act as well and as tragically as Tosca her-. 
self does on the stage. 

Now they hear the firing-squad approach. In almost 
defiant exhilaration they sing, even now, one last up- 
mounting song of joy—of freedom soon to be—sing 
sans accompaniment—sans everything but their own 
soaring spirits; they no longer tread the earth—so great 
is their hope and their joy. 

Dawn is breaking, there is light in the sky, a bell is 
sounding, a clock nearby is striking four. ‘The soldiers 
appear coming up the stairway. 

A moment more—one foolish little moment to allow 
for the foolish little farce of a mimic execution—then 
away—away! La Tosca, all impatience, waits at the 
guard-house door, watching the stupid preliminaries. 

The soldiers offer Cavaradossi the usual handkerchief 
to blindfold his eyes. He refuses, he prefers to keep 


oA LOSOAY 109 


his glance on La Tosca’s bright face in the doorway 
behind them. He is glad she can watch how artistically 
he will fall when they fire. She waves a merry hand 
to him. 

The guns are raised. There is a moment’s pause in the 
orchestra—then a shot—and the prisoner falls to the 
floor, just as planned. A business-like, energetic theme, 
the same one that accompanied their entrance, now ushers 
the soldiers, single file, down the stairs. Tosca watches 
their departure most carefully, constantly warning 
Cavaradosst in little asides, not to move-not yet. At 
last they are alone. 

“Now, now, get up! We can go!” 

She rushes to him, calls him, kneels at his side, turns 
him toward her, his face upward—it is the face of a 
corpse! There was no “simulated”? execution—just the 
simulated order for one. Horror upon horror is the 
ending of this opera. A moment later poor, grief- 
frenzied Tosca, hears a disturbance below—cries of 
“Murder in the Palace!” Scarpia’s dead body has been 
discovered. Already they are after her. Soldiers are 
again mounting the stairs, this time in precipitous haste. 

With one wild shriek of madness, La Tosca springs to 
the wall of the parapet and before they can seize her, 
leaps to her death. 


Oot Wem bi eed 4 
MARY GARDENS OL) EO end mat iit. 


HERE is a strange, weird energy wielding its force 
hae the world to-day; a force hard to classify, but a 
force far-reaching, at times dangerous, at times bene- 
ficent ; its name is Mary Garden. 

I think the Fates, or Greek gods, or Karma itself— 
(meaning the result of past actions in a previous life) 
all these I believe were outwitted by the force that is 
Mary Garden. They planned and devised a huge curse 
to follow through life this babe they called ‘Mary. They 
planned to entice her, mislead her with a quiver full of 
great gifts—all the needed arsenal of a Grand-Opera 
singer: beauty, splendid health, a big brain, vivid imagina- 
tion, some heart, some good business judgment, together 
with a visualizing sense of beauty astounding in its scope; 
also an interpretative grasp of music and poetry, illumi- 
nating and flash-like; also a nervous temperament keenly 
balanced, all tingling and glowing yet firmly leashed to a 
will that would not hesitate to handle Jove’s own thunder- 
bolts. All this they gave to Mary Garden; they headed 
her straight for the Grand-Opera stage, but one thing 
they withheld—a great voice. 

In the prehistoric ooze of time it may have been that 
Mary Garden, in her “tadpole” days, disported herself 
in ways unheard of. Something terrible there must have 


been in her “far amphibious past” to have incurred a 
110 


MARY GARDEN 18 


curse so keenly, subtly, cruel. But mark you how this 
girl defied the gods. That will they gave her was a bit 
of themselves—they incautiously had flung to her a frag- 
ment oversize. ‘Watch me sing triumphantly in Grand 
Opera!” she gaily halloed to Olympus. “Watch me 
(don’t listen)—just watch me!” 

And bless you, this is what they all—both gods and 
men—are still doing. It is an interesting pastime, enliv- 
ening, thrilling, diversifying, breath-catching. “She is all 
flame and gold,” says James Gibbons Huneker, her great- 
est admirer, but he then cautiously adds: “except when 
she sings above the staff.” 

“Her voice is harsh at times, even distressing,” another 
critic has stated. In fact, she herself makes no claims as 
a singer—a touch of commendable frankness on her part 
that serves to emphasize her high mentality and con- 
sciousness of power—but we go to see her none the less 
and continue to acclaim her a Grand-Opera star. 

Some one has said, “Mary Garden can not sing, but 
she certainly shrieks divinely.” When she made her New 
York debut in “Thais” she felt called upon the next day 
to apologize; she made full confession to the press. 

“Don’t judge me by my singing. I know I haven’t a 
Melba voice. And don’t judge me by one performance. 
You will find my art consists in everything I do—my 
interpretation, expression, movements, costume—the 
tout ensemble. I know I sang badly last night; when I 
took my high notes my throat felt as tho a steel chain 
were binding it.” 

That’s the way it sounded, Mary, that’s the way it 
sounded! As an initial instance of this amazing, unpre- 
cedented power that is known as Mary Garden, let the 
fact be recorded that the newspapers humbly heeded her 


lis OPERA ANDIIMG STARS 


apology. The critics ceased to carp and—as I stated 
before—gods and men have been watching her ever since. 
And Mary Garden has never failed to give them plenty 
to look at. She has never failed to fill their eyes with 
astonishment. I say this in no caustic spirit, for art 
should be astonishing—not purposely so, not with this 
aim in view, but because true art is always unconsciously 
original—unconsciously different. 

As a good example of the subtle spell we succumb to 
when within the circle of Mary Garden’s witchery, I 
recall my own feelings as I watched her in one of Ham- 
merstein’s venturesome presentations at the Manhattan. 
“Drusilda” was the name of the opera. I saw a moonlit 
setting of palace-grounds. I see it yet, with Mary Garden 
in clinging white, sinuating slowly down a sweeping curve 
of marble steps. I was entranced by the beauty of it 
all. Then suddenly with forethought and a purpose I 
gave myself a mental jerk; I assured myself that any 
shapely woman in clinging white could not help but 
appear divinely fair when descending that gleaming 
escalade enwrapt in the pale splendor of a well-adjusted 
moonlight. But later on in the scene another character, 
a woman, well-formed and also in trailing white, swayed 
slowly down that same stairway in that same impeccable 
moonlight. I watched most carefully this second dim 
descending figure and to my unforgettable amaze, tho 
all things else I found the same, the dream and the thrill 
were missing. Another time Mary Garden, scheduled to 
appear in “Louise,” was suddenly indisposed; a well- 
known singer—a real singer with a real voice—was 
announced to take her place. I went to this performance 
all-rejoicing, my eyes agleam with unholy joy. Mary 
Garden’s Louise was familiar to me; I had seen her in 





© MISHKIN, N. Y. 


Mary GARDEN 





MARY GARDEN Ine 


the part more than once, but this time—said I to myself— 
this time Louise will actually sing; I can listen at last to 
the music. I came forth from that performance a 
thoughtful and wiser woman. In all humility I was 
forced to admit that Louise had left me impassive, un- 
moved, whereas heretofore I had tingled and glowed with 
enthusiasm. There was something lacking—I can not 
say what—I only know.that I missed the thrill that is 
Mary Garden. 

I have said that her power at times is stich as to be 
almost dangerous. It has in fact created a cult, an “ism.” 
Her admirers grow dizzy with adulation. I have known 
some—not men—but maids and matrons, who made it 
a law unto themselves never to miss a Garden per- 
formance. They will verily leave all—even nursing 
babes—to acclaim the Mary they have set so high. 

In the Garden gallery of resourceful ladies, who live 
to love and to prey, their sorcery is not depicted by the 
wonted play of heavy-lidded eyes—dark, deep and dan- 
_ gerous. These methods are old and commonplace. Mary 
Garden’s art is a leaping flame, but her eyes are cold and 
gray, sharp-edged and rapier-like. Her face, too, lacks 
warmth of expression; there is something chiseled and 
hard about it. Her smile is cool and fleeting but lumi- 
nous as sunlight on a glacier. And her voice—if we for- 
give the upper tones and consider only the middle range— 
her voice has an original tang to it that one learns to 
crave like forbidden fruit. It is a clear cool tone like 
her smile; there is timbre to it, and you feel in it also 
the hidden rapier neath any touch of tenderness that may 
be expressed. 

Mary Garden is an American citizen born in Scotland 
of Scottish parents and trained in Paris. There you 


IIA OPERA AND ITS STARS 


have it! A juggling of elements that would cause any 
wide-awake guardian angel to fold her wings and think 
of Paradise Lost. There must still be a drop of Presbyte- 
rian Puritanism in Mary Garden’s veins; not even Paris 
can entirely eradicate it. But in appearance and manner 
Mary Garden is utterly Parisienne, from the effusive 
perfume of her gold-tinted hair to the satin bottines in 
which she has wandered down the Elysian Fields to the 
Place of Concord and the Way of Peace. She is Paris 
itself. No wonder her whole being throbs in “Louise” 
when she exclaims—yes, shrieks—in climactic cadence— 
barista Paris!) Parish, 

She loves to enact roles of Balzacian, bacchanalian 
flavor. Babylon, too, appeals to her, and the brazen 
beauty of Alexandria. 

In her art she delights in defying all codes, and tri- 
umphing quand méme. “Salome’’ was condemned, hissed 
and hushed into silence, until Mary Garden flamed upon 
us—white-armed, red-haired and tiger-eyed—in a robe 
of orange satin, snaky and long as the river Nile. 

Thais is another one of her unmentionable ladies, tho 
in the end she does become converted—not without sub- 
terfuge however; she really ought not to have wandered 
off in the desert with Sathanael—any Presbyterian would 
tell you that. The list of these ladies in her repertoire 
is long. Sappho was one, a role wherein she was carried 
by the tenor, clinging and panting, up a flight of stairs. 
And Gismonda there was, too, and Cleopatra. Glory be! 
What a Cleopatra we saw! The Egyptian serpent could 
have learned from Garden, learned new tricks in the way 
of sinuous, ensnaring movements—the gliding approach 
and venomous dart. 

But let us not forget that lurking strain of Puritanism, 


MARY GARDEN 115 


that one little corpuscle in Mary’s veins forever looking 
on with disapproval. To pacify this nagging little atom 
Mary discovered and presented with glee “The Juggler 
of Touraine.” This role is Catholic, to be sure, but John 
Bunyan himself must have loved it for its precious purity : 
the pitiful little juggler who, to honor the Virgin, gives 
of his best—his dancing and circus-tricks—all alone 
before her shrine. And in this role—sans the charm of 
white flesh, flashing eyes, and sinuous femininity—Mary 
Garden again triumphed, by no other power that I can 
see than that same mysterious force—that urge of will— 
that forever carries her on. 

Is it Nietzsche’s “Will-to-do?’—An evidence of the 
Super-woman? This phrase has been applied to her 
more than once. Especially was it used when the Chicago 
Opera Company, threatened with disaster, was taken over 
by Mary Garden who announced her readiness to direct 
the whole thing herself. Whether she did actually fulfil 
all the duties of the harassed director or not—I don’t 
know; but certain it is she held the post for a year, and 
did not lose flesh or nerve while doing it and at the same 
time appearing regularly as the Company’s leading star. 

I have reserved to the last all mention of her greatest 
achievement. I have often felt provoked at the doings 
of this American Mary—even anger—but all resentment 
is forgotten—I bow—and cry All Hail!—when I see 
her as Mélisande. A miracle of perfection is her presenta- 
tion of this character—even her voice rings true in the 
part, so perfectly attuned that one feels that no other 
voice in the world would be fitting. It is not singing 
music; the voice-part is almost wholly parlando, wholly 
bare of high notes and coloratura. Whether Debussy knew 
it or not, the music of this role was certainly made for 


116 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


that cool, clean voice, that middle register of the one 
and only Mary. 

But the plot! Well, any one but Mary Garden would 
have said at once it was the one role she could not play. 
What! The mercurial Mary as the quiet, timid, mild 
Mélisande! It was unthinkable. But those who thought 
thus failed to reckon with that urging atom of Puritanism 
that ever and again clogs up the machinery of Mary 
Garden’s mental workshop, which is mostly of French 
construction. The tender, unearthly Mélisande strangely 
appealed to this fire-flung super-woman. I feel like say- 
ing that she literally discovered and created the part. I 
doubt whether the composer or the poet, or the poet’s 
wife who first sang the part, fully sensed all its meaning 
until Mary Garden gave it life. It is a role almost devoid 
of action or tensity, yet greater dramatic art—I believe— 
was never displayed than in the still gentleness of Méli- 
sande’s death-bed scene. 

I am giving Mary Garden high praise; such is the 
strange, weird energy she wields. She has mighty gifts— 
I can not but recognize them. I have chronicled them 
truthfully. I must also chronicle her faults. Her dispo- 
sition is rough at the edge and needs polishing. 

This chapter—as you have noticed—is not an inter- 
view. Lay no blame on me for this fact: I wrote to 
Miss Garden two years ago and sent her a copy of the 
first edition of my book, for which I was asking the 
favor of an interview. No answer to this. I then sought 
the help of one who knew her personally—and for that 
matter knows all the great musicians of the world—Mr. 
James Francis Cooke, Editor of The Etude. He 
frankly told me that Miss Garden is “difficult,” tho she 
does not mean to be so. He kindly wrote to her about 


-MARY GARDEN 117 


me—but he, too, was ignored. Then I called at the 
office of her general manager, and was told to see her 
personal manager when next she came to New York. 

Thus, by degrees, was revealed to me the Himalayan 
altitude of Mary Garden. I had heretofore aspired no 
higher than the attainment of a brief causerie with the 
fixed Stars of the Metropolitan—a region where the 
supreme voices of the age make harmony divine. I 
realized now that I was striving for admittance to a 
Presence almost as remote and mighty as is that other 
American “Mary” to whom we submissively bow and 
pay tribute. To approach Mary Pickford, I am told, one 
must be passported through an advance guard of secre- 
taries and managers that would quake the heart of a 
Pinkerton detective. But I still pursued my audacious 
dream. I bided my time till she came to New York, 
then I again sought her general manager. He curtly 
gave me the address of her personal manager, and told 
me to write to him. I did so and also sent by special 
messenger a second copy of “Stars of the Opera” to this 
meteoric “Mary.” The next day I received a reply— 
crude and cold as the tones of ‘Thais’: “Miss Garden 
regrets she can not give an interview.” Just that— 
nothing more. Without beginning and without end— 
absolute and supreme—like the Order of Melchisedec. 

So accustomed was I to meeting only courtesy and 
charm of manner in my interviews with Opera Stars, 
that I had come to associate these qualities with the career 
itself. And now I believe more than ever that courtesy 
is an integral part of every great singer’s equipment; but 
—mark you—I say “singer,” and I mean by this the pos- 
sessor of a great voice. T’one-mastery is so mighty an art 
that I believe it entails self-mastery. We speak of the 


118 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


artistic temperament, but let me assure you, this does not 
imply a luxurious giving away to temper. Such explosions 
are too damaging to the self-poise that a well-balanced 
tone-scale requires. When you meet a great singer with a 
world’s wonder of a voice—a voice well-maintained and 
not harmed by indulgence—you meet one who has learned 
that geniality, kindness, graciousness and poise are as 
essential to saving one’s voice as to saving one’s soul. 

But there is still hope for Mary Garden; she may yet 
swing into that zenith where the singing Stars hold 
straight and true to the high demands of their eminence. 
Mary Garden may yet really sing—may yet become sweet 
and gracious—for I read in a New York daily that she 
is following Coué—in an effort to improve “her health, 
her disposition, and her voice.’”’ Amen. 


GEA PRE Rav 
“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE” 


TRANGE, mellifluous, faraway names these are, 
S possessing in themselves a somnolent mysticism 
that suggests the stage-setting: dark, disconsolate forests, 
and a castle darker yet, with a crypt of absolute blackness. 
The action of this opera is all in accordance with some 
brooding fate that is heard and felt throughout the per- 
formance. It all occurs during the dark ages of the past, 
altho the time is not definitely stated, probably because 
symbolism fits all ages and this opera is gruesomely sym- 
bolic and fatalistic. 

Pelléas and Mélisande are poor, pale puppets, unknow- 
ing that they are pulled by invisible strings all held in 
the hands of the Great Conductor who directs the music. 
The Belgian poet, Maeterlinck, was visualizing life itself, 
from a pessimistic viewpoint, when he wrote this dour 
tragedy. And there chanced to be one other man in the 
world with thoughts all akin to Maeterlinck’s, but who 
traced his dreams in dots and quavers on a staff. This 
man was Claude Debussy. Never were author and com- 
poser more attuned to each other. The grim awfulness 
of life which Maeterlinck perceived, and pinioned to 
paper with piercing words, the strange unfettered spirit 
of Debussy heard in a clash of soul-wrenching tones 
which he too was master enough to capture. There are 
five acts in this drama; three scenes in each one, save the 
last, which makes thirteen in all—a fitting number. 


The first scene is a forest where one might look to 
119 


120 OPERAVANDUIVS eS LARS 


find “the windy owl, wheeling his ghostly shadow to and 
fro with melancholy hooting.’ But we knew what to 
expect before the curtain rose. Such inundating desola- 
tion has never, that I know of, been so adequately put into 
music as is here done in this short prelude by Debussy. 
There are discords in it, firm and uncompromising, but 
you soon get addicted to them—either as a narcotic or 
a tonic, it is hard to say which. Certain it is that there 
is something about this composer’s defiant discords that 
possess the tang of forbidden fruit. I am not sure but 
that it is a dissipation to hear Debussy. 

But it is never a carouse, never strident or coarse; his 
discords may be brazen in their audacity, but they are 
always presented with a dull finish; all is softened and 
subdued; he never forgets the symbolism of it all. The 
music hangs like a mist over the whole opera; the plot, 
the words, are as a glint of diamonds in a fog, a gleam 
of gold neath quiet water. There is in that prelude the 
voice of Fate—a theme whose intervals are compassed 
by two tones, when reduced to its lowest analysis. This 
theme hovers all through the opera in all manner of 
rhythms and disguised harmonies (that is what discords 
really are, perhaps, in life as well as music). But you 
won't notice that wail of Fate in the prelude; one never 
does heed the first portentous warning. But it is there, 
plainly sounded like predestination, before the curtain 
rises. 

It is also there when Golaud, who is lost on his way 
while hunting (we are all lost on our way hunting happi- 
ness), enters and begins to sing. He is an elderly man, 
a kindly man, the grandson of an aged King, well-reared 
and well-disposed, but none the less he serves, all unwit- 
ting, as dire fate to a maiden whom he presently perceives 


“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE” - 121 


recumbent by a pool. She is weeping. Two soft dis- 
cords in the orchestra sound her gentle sobbing; the 
saddest, faintest discords—such gentle tears they are. 
Golaud steps forward to question and comfort. this 
despairing loveliness, for she is very beautiful, very 
young; clad in a soft white robe, and a mantle (nothing 
else can describe it) of golden hair that reaches to her 
feet. A nymph in a cascade of gold she seems. She 
rises and starts to flee at sight of Golaud. A short phrase 
in the orchestra expresses her palpitating fear; a hesitant 
little phrase is this Fear-theme: it echoes around Mélisande 
throughout the whole opera; she is always afraid and 
shrinking. Golaud reassures her and she resumes her 
place, still weeping. His quiet words are sung in recita- 
tive. This opera is a fantasy of life, remember, so the 
characters in it do not sing songs; their voices merely 
follow their emotions, with varied uprisings, inflections 
and accents, all conforming to the orchestra, however; all 
carefully adjusted and minutely written out, every word 
to its own note, and every note on its proper beat, al- 
tho it be but a sixty-fourth grace note. But the dear, 
sad creatures on the stage are all unconscious—so it 
seems—that their impulsive utterings are not devised on 
the spur of the moment and of their own free will. 
Golaud asks Mélisande how she came here. She does 
not know. Where did she come from? She does not 
know. She still weeps. He sees a glint of something in 
the pool and looks again; it is a crown! How came it 
there? It was Mélisande’s, it seems, and she has lost it. 
But she does not wish him to try to regain it for her; 
she has no use for it now. Golaud is nonplussed at the 
strange creature. Right now deep in the orchestra may 
be heard a conspicuous sample of the whole-tone scale. 


122 QAR RAVA ND EES mo leakS 


This pagan scale (Chinese, in point of fact) has been 
troubling the harmonies from the first and accounts 
for the astonishing discords and sequences. Composers 
heretofore have been very shy about toying with the 
whole-toned scale; the scarlet-woman of the staff. The 
hard-working practical major scale—we know her well, 
and the thoughtful melancholy minor is a grande dame, a 
veritable aristocrat; there is also the chipper, pert chro- 
matic scale, intruding herself almost too often, but none 
the less admitted everywhere; then there is the penta- 
tonic, a foreign creature, very attractive and frequently 
met with. But the whole-toned scale! Beware of her! 
She will lead you astray; her disregard of good form, 
of all laws and rules, make her quite impossible, I assure 
you. But Debussy does not care! He breaks the laws 
of harmony and welters at times in such a chaos of dis- 
cord that when you come to a nice recognizable group of 
consecutive fifths you feel comparatively restful, in spite 
of the fact that you have been brought up to consider 
such groupings accursed. But Debussy found, and you 
will find too, something very enticing about this strange 
creature among scales. Broken laws have a fascination 
even in music. There is a languorous witchery to these 
insinuating discords; you gradually come to thirst for 
them and drink deep of their bittersweet potency. Yes, 
Debussy is a “dissipation” —no doubt of it. 

So Mélisande is first presented to us as one alone in a 
great wilderness, unknowing whence she came, weeping 
and afraid. Just so are all poor souls ushered into exist- 
ence merely to find themselves lost in a strange world. 
Like the smile of an infant in its sleep is that glint of a 
buried crown—a memory, a gleam of some supernal glory 
in the unknown realm from whence it came. And just 


“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE” 123 


as we all do when ushered into life—so Mélisande accepts 
and clings to the first kindly hand extended toward her. 

Golaud bids her follow him; he can not leave her 
helpless in the forest, tho he is lost himself. (What a 
grim glimpse of life!) And so this strange scene ends. 

But not the music. Dark themes continue to be 
threaded back and forth in the orchestra. The conductor 
like a weaver at his loom carefully shades the intricate 
pattern in tones of royal purple, blood-red and _ black. 
We see only the back of the tapestry, till the curtain 
lifts again. 

Much has been woven and reeled off since we last 
looked upon the living picture. Six months have passed. 
Golaud has sent a letter to his home. His mother is 
reading it to her father-in-law, old half-blind King Arkel. 
They are seated in an oriole window of the great grim 
castle. Here the light streams upon them and even ven- 
tures a bit further into the vaulted room, but it soon is 
lost among the tall arches and stone pillars. Very 
beautiful is this picture of the white-bearded monarch 
beside the stained-glass window listening to the letter 
from his grandson. Princess Genevieve, already gray 
herself but nobly gowned in medieval robes, reads in 
recitative contralto tones how Golaud has found the 
strange Mélisande and has married her and loves her, 
but now after six months he knows no more of her past 
than at first. But she is beautiful and good and will, 
he believes, care for his little son Yuold (Golaud has 
been married before). He writes now to announce his 
return and is hoping they will receive Mélisande as a 
daughter. 

While the letter is being read Pelléas joins them; he 
is Golaud’s young stepbrother. He is thinking of taking 


124 ORERA AND TTS eSTARS 


a journey (he is always thinking of going away, just as 
we all are forever thinking of doing something different). 
His present reason for going is that a distant friend who 
is ill has just written begging to see him before he dies. 
But King Arkel disapproves of the project, for Pelléas’s 
own father, it seems, is on a sick-bed (somewhere in this 
doleful castle) and filial duty should hold him here. 
Every mention of extraneous characters or events in this 
opera only adds another touch of pain. The unseen is 
all drear. The sick-room in the castle is several times 
referred to. (Every life has its sick-room, either in the 
home or in the heart.) So Pelléas, from a sense of duty, 
defers his journey. He means to do for the best; how 
can he know that he is doing for the worst. Still less 
does he know that he does as he does because it is so 
written in the book. 

The curtain descends and only the themes in the 
orchestra creep forward and loom large, like shadows 
of coming events. ‘There is the Fate-theme grim and 
ever present, and a lovely group of chords with never a 
thought of discord that first came to birth in the previous 
scene when Golaud observed to Mélisande—“How fair 
you are!’ This theme appears in the present interim 
veiled in mournful minor. They face each other now— 
these two unequal themes; one forbidding and unmerci- 
ful—the other piteous and frail; its gentle harmony con- 
fronted by gnashing discords that suggest fierce lions 
roaring at a Christian martyr—thrown together for the 
sport of the gods. But not yet is the clash to be. 

The curtain rises again showing the gloomy park of 
the castle with a glimpse of the sea in the distance, and 
we hear in the orchestra the frail, timid theme that 
first ushered in Mélisande. She enters with Golaud’s 


iE PELLEAS AND MBELISANDE” 25 


mother, Princess Genevieve. Mélisande is herself now 
a princess—Golaud’s wife, and she wears beautiful gar- 
ments and her hair sedately braided. But she is still shy 
and afraid, altho she shows this mostly by her quiet 
movements and few words. She feels lost in the great 
castle and equally lost in the surrounding forest. “How 
tall the trees are,” she exclaims. They have come to this 
spot for a sight of the sea, an outlook, a bit of light. 
They are always noting the darkness and seeking the 
light in this opera. The whole human race is engulfed 
in blackness, according to Maeterlinck. 

Mélisande has found some flowers on the way and 
lost no time in grasping them. Her arms are full. She 
is very quiet and very beautiful and resembles a carved 
image as she sits for a time immobile on a great stone 
bench. ‘The orchestra, too, is very quiet; a somnolent 
reiteration of double thirds on the violin, with an occa- 
sional flitting by of Mélhsande’s Fear-theme. 

Presently Pelléas joins them; they look out toward ite 
harbor, see a ship sailing, talk of that and of a beacon- 
light in the distance and of the heat and the dark shadows 
and a possible storm. There is nothing else to see; 
nothing else to talk of in this gloomy life. Their words 
are trivial as our own, but their thoughts—! Turn you to 
the orchestra for them; in the great rhythms that sur- 
round them all that is hidden shall be revealed. There 
are fair harmonies without a discord in the orchestra 
when Pelléas draws near, and if you listen carefully— 
for the music is all soft and gentle—you will find the 
Fate-theme lurking about. Especially is this true when 
Genevieve goes away, leaving Pelléas to show Mélisande 
the road back to the castle. But it is very faint—that 
Fate-theme now, triple pianissimo and almost lost in the 


126 OPERA AND Dats PARS 


ebb and flow of languorous double-thirds that lap and 
plash like sleepy wavelets upon the edge of Silence. With 
the close of this scene the first act ends. 

The prelude to the second act introduces us to another 
scene in the gloomy park; the chief interest here center- 
ing about an old stone well or fountain. Like a bit of 
pale sunshine is the flickering violin passage that accom- 
panies the entrance of Pelléas and Mélisande. ‘This 1s 
one of the few passages in the music wherein the over- 
hanging pall that oppresses the whole opera seems to lift 
for a brief moment. Pelléas and Mélisande are almost 
well acquainted now; quite brotherly and sisterly in 
deportment. He is showing her this retreat in the park 
where he frequently comes during the heat of the day. 
It is the noon hour now; the atmosphere is heavy; a sultry 
twang of the violins—double-third grace-notes that loll 
in the embrace of that languorous whole-toned scale— 
give a parching, heavy-lidded feel to the music. They 
are sounded very softly and only a few times, but there 
is something strange, tropical and unwholesome, about 
those plucked double-thirds; something quiet but dan- 
gerous like the old stone-well which entices Mélisande. 
Pelléas tells her it is called the “Well of the Blind,” 
because it once had healing power for the sightless, but 
it is now abandoned and no longer potent. 

Mélisande reclines on the parapet, reaches down her 
hand, tries to touch the water, tries to see the bottom. 
She is thoughtless as a child and for once almost un- 
afraid; we do not hear her Fear-theme throughout this 
entire scene. Just when she should scent danger she 
loses all timidity. She is blind; they are both blind; but 
the old well can not heal. Pelléas, however, fears for 
her. He tells her to be careful in leaning over, for the 


“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE” 127 


well is deep—‘‘deep as the sea.’”’ He might have added 
that his love, too, is deep as the sea, altho he hardly 
knows this yet himself, poor lad. Only the music knows 
and shows it; so tender is the phrase that supports his 
words of caution and his speaking of her name. A 
moment later she is playing with her wedding-ring, toss- 
ing it up and down, seeing it sparkle in the sunlight. A 
child indeed she is, poised on the brink of disaster. 

Pelléas again cautions her; the ring may fall into the 
well. It does so! The music, too, tumbles down an 
arpeggio from highest G-sharp to lowest 4. 

“Oh!” gasps Mélisande, very faintly. And in the 
orchestra there are twelve peals of a bell. The hour of 
doom has struck. But she does not know it, neither does 
Pelléas. ‘They peer into the well but see no vestige of 
the ring. ‘Too bad—what shall she tell Golaud? ‘The 
truth,’ wise Pelléas answers, and they try to make light 
of the whole occurrence. To lose a ring is no crime. 
They start home bravely; the pale sunlight-phrase in the 
orchestra again accompanies them. It is of sixteenth notes 
and almost merry, but above it sounds Pelléas’s tender 
Fear-theme, and soon the grim Fate-theme wipes out 
all the sunshine. 

There follows a scene in the castle, drear as usual. 
Golaud is reclining on a bed, slightly hurt from a hunt- 
ing accident, and Mélisande is attending him. He is in a 
talkative mood and entertains himself by recounting the 
accident. It was so inexplicable: his horse suddenly 
shied and shot off like a flash—for no reason at all. They 
were nearing the castle; he had just counted the noon- 
hour strokes of the tower-bell. One would think the 
- horse had seen something supernatural. What he really 
had seen or heard or felt is told in the orchestra: Pelléas’s 


128 OPERATAND TGS @s/PARS 


delicate Fear-theme; the one that we heard around the 
stroke of twelve when Mélisande lost her wedding-ring, 
now flutters past like a fleeting thought. For him that 
hath ears—let him hear. 

Golaud can not recall how he fell, or what happened, 
but he remembers there was a great weight upon his 
heart—he felt “as tho it were torn in two.” 

But he feels better now; no harm seems to have been 
done. He suddenly perceives that Mélisande is weeping 
quietly. He questions her in astonishment. She only 
answers she “is not happy.” 

~Golaud means well and questions her kindly; is she 
sick? Has anyone hurt her? Is it his mother? Or 
Pelléas, perhaps? “He is reserved by nature and seldom 
speaks to anyone.” ‘No,’ she answers through her 
tears, ‘“Pelléas speaks to her when they meet.” 

Golaud is not attuned to the “wireless” memory now 
throbbing in the air, or he would know exactly how 
Pelléas speaks “when they meet.” His tender Fear- 
theme (fear for her safety on the well-curb) is again 
wafted up from the instruments. 

Good Golaud asks further, “Is there anything he can 
do?” “Is she lonely?’ Perhaps that is it, Mélisande 
assents tearfully and quietly. ‘The castle is so dark, she 
is unhappy here; “‘one never sees the sun—except to-day 
for the first time—a little bit.”’ We hear that “little bit” 
in the orchestra; the light, shimmering phrase that accom- 
panied her and Pelléas by the fountain. 

Golaud tries to comfort her; he takes her hand. All 
tremolo and very faint is the music now; and good 
reason is there for this panting agitation. 

Golaud soon notes the missing ring. 

HAN INere cismitiey 


“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE” 12g 


“Tt—it must have—fallen off.” 

“Where?” 

Poor Mélisande, at no time very brilliant, now loses 
all her wits; some instinct to conceal the fact that she 
was with Pelléas in his favorite noon-hour retreat, 
prompts her to say that it must have fallen off when 
she was “with young Ymold this morning in the grotto 
by the sea.”’ 

Of course it chances that that particular ring, like 
Desdemona’s handkerchief, is of untold worth. Golaud 
is very wrought up over the loss, altho not meaning to 
upbraid her, and he bids her go at once to find it; “the 
tide will rise to-night and carry it away. You must go 
at once.” 

She hesitates, is afraid to go alone, so he bids her take 
someone with her—‘‘take Pelléas.” 

She goes out weeping, repeating the pitiful wail, not 
uncommon to humanity—‘I am so unhappy.” 

Faint flecks of the “sunlight”? music are heard in the 
orchestra during the ensuing interim, but they are very 
dim, merely a memory. Many low trills and tremolos 
-and rumbling double-thirds follow, and permeate the 
surrounding darkness (the lights are kept low during 
all the interims). But it is all very pianissimo. The 
Terror by Night is merely turning in his sleep. 

The grotto by the sea is our next vision in this opera 
of many scenes—each one beautiful but brief, reminding 
us that life is but a broken strand of beads whose gems 
are slipping: ‘‘Pearl after pearl into the bowl of night.” 

The stage depicts the dark interior of the grotto; 
beyond, through its rocky arches, the pale-lit sea and 
sky are seen. Back of the open grotto, between it and 
the water, poor fate-tossed Pelléas and Mélisande are 


130 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


seen. She has really never yet been inside the cavern but, 
since Golaud has sent her, Pelléas advises her to look in, 
so she can at least talk confidently about it when further 
questioned. They wait for the moon to emerge from a 
cloud; it will be light enough then to step inside. He 
holds her hand and bids her have no fear. Right now a 
foretaste of the love-music, that predominates in a later 
scene, floats across the orchestra like the passage of a 
dreamy swan on the surface of a quiet pool. In the 
meantime we see the pictured water and sky growing 
lighter and we hear a soft, restless, lapping repetand of 
thirds and fourths in the orchestra which grows steadily 
clearer and brighter—not louder, just more lucid. It is 
a ravishing effect; these swooning, softly brooding, un- 
hallowed harmonies of the whole-tone scale caress you 
like the ripples of a moon-lit sea. But as they progress 
they ever and again splash into the radiant major; it is 
like a touch of phosphorescent light; ozone after poppy 
or mandragora. You breathe deeply but with that hush 
of the sleeper who is loth to awaken. 

At last, when the moon fully emerges, there is a touch 
of the harp and some triumphant tremolos that bathe the 
world in glory. 

Then a cry from Mélisande as she enters the cave; 
she is terrified by the sight of three old ragged men 
asleep on the ground. The moon falls full upon them. 
Pelléas soon solves the horror. In reassuring tones he 
explains: 

“Just some paupers who have stopped here to rest; 
there’s a famine in the land and one meets with such 
beggars everywhere.” 

There is beggary in the music now—all the sea-dream 
and the glory have departed; just single tones, low and 


“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE” 131 


sad; Pelléas and Mélisande hasten out and leave the 
paupers still sleeping. 

Were the paupers also puppets serving, all-unconscious, 
in their sleep to terrify the as yet unthinking lovers from 
the deep pools of danger in that cave? Are there two 
fates jerking at the motives of our lives? Maeterlinck 
does not know. He only knows what we ourselves 
know—that the music still goes on. 

The opening scene of act III is the most memorable 
one in the opera; it centers about an open window in a 
tower of the castle; below is a path and a stone-seat and 
yew trees and willows. It is night and all things are 
white with moonlight. (The whole opera is drenched in 
moonlight, even the music.) The opening notes of this 
scene fairly drip with it—broken octaves on the strings— 
very pianissimo. Debussy is not original in this; it is 
the composer’s stock device for moonlight. 

But there is more light than the moon in this scene. 
Mélisande at the window is combing her amazing gold 
hair; hair that reaches to her feet. Its shimmering gold 
gleam is like a lamp at the casement. It is no exaggera- 
tion to say that this scene, indeed the whole opera, hangs 
on her wondrous golden hair. One may say that the 
first essential to the production of this opera is a wig; 
a fabulous, stupendous wig. Good voices may be dis- 
pensed with (they frequently are) and good. looks, too 
(the opera is mostly in half light), but that wig of bound- 
less beauty shares honors with the composer and poet. 

There in the moonlight this Lorelei of the tower combs 
her hair and sings a song—a weird little snatch of a 
song—not loud and not long, but loud enough to be 
~ heard by the ears of love. Pelléas draws near to the 
wall beneath. He asks, ““Who is singing like a bird in 


132 OPERA AND ITS STARS ae 


the night?” They talk then, as undeclared lovers ever 
have, of the beautiful evening, the flowers and the stars; 
and all the time the music is softly bewitching them— 
entwining them in a web of opalescent harmonies. He 
tries to see her better, he begs her to lean forward; he is 
“going away to-morrow,” she must let him kiss her hand 
for good-by; she refuses to reach down her hand unless 
he promises not to go. He stands on the stone-bench 
trying to reach her fingers, but the distance is too great. 
She leans far out and suddenly her hair falls down, inun- 
dating Pelléas in a shower of gold. The music, too, ina 
shower of fantastic chords, avalanches down the rocky 
declivities of the whole-tone scale; it is the only fortis- 
simo passage in this act; in fact there is only one other 
in the opera. 

The present high light of sound is temporary and 
subsides with Pelléas’s astonishment, which gives away to 
raptures. He plays with the pendant tresses—kisses 
them—ties them about his neck—refuses to unclasp 
_ them, declares they come to him from on high; they have 
fallen from heaven—he “‘can no longer see heaven because 
of them.” And the soft, mad music in the orchestra ‘is 
radiant and misty with strange pale hues that melt into 
each other like colors on a crested wave. The conductor 
with his baton looms impressive as great Merlin, weaving 
weird enchantments about these unwitting lovers. Un- 
earthly harmonies, the very “Wine of Wizardry,” fill the 
brimming bowl of music that Debussy has here brewed 
for us. Airy bubbles of gleaming melodies float to the 
surface, scintillate for a moment, and dissolve in a burst 
of jewelled light; others follow, mounting up through 
the ruby depths to shimmer in glory fora moment. The 
depths themselves, if you peer deep down, are glowing 


“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE” 133 


with strange life and unwonted colors. There are deep- 
sea mysteries in the undercurrents of Claude Debussy’s 
quiet music; a necromancer of awful power is this 
nouveau-art French composer. He flings upon you, gently 
and unawares, unholy chords that well-nigh suffocate 
you with their unmistakable brimstone flavor. And then 
in a moment, by some undreamed of modulation, incense 
and attar-of-roses cloy you with their sweetness. This 
scene finds you, like Pelléas himself, enwrapped in a 
mesh of gold, drunk with strange harmonies, a dreamer 
adrift on a purple sea—North, East, South and West 
are no more—the boundaries of music have vanished! 

Suddenly three doves flutter about the tower. There 
is a tremolo in the music; the white gleam of wings 
startles Mélisande; “You have frightened away my doves 
of the tower,” she exclaims. “Leave me now, Pelléas, 
or they will never come back!’ 

Alas—something more than the doves has_ flown; 
peace—the peace of three lives—has taken wing. 

Far down in the orchestra, so deeply buried that only 
those that seek shall find, are twelve slowly reverberating 
intonations. With the final, pulsing beat, Golaud sud- 
denly appears on the scene. He is astonished, but still 
shapes his tones to kindness. 

“What are you doing—playing like children? You 
are only a couple of children. You will catch cold, 
Mélisande. Go to bed. It is late. It is midnight.” 

Things always happen in this opera when the clock 
strikes twelve. | 

The Fate-theme stalks abroad again in the orchestra. 
It is the hour of tragedy and phantoms. 

Scene II of this act is to the unthinking observer well 
nigh meaningless, both musically and dramatically. A 


134 OPERAVANDELIS <5 PAKS 


moment’s thought, however, will make it vibrant with 
purpose. We see a subterranean vault among the dilapi- 
dated foundations of the castle. It is absolutely dark 
until the beams of a slowly penetrating lantern illumine 
the greenish coloring and miasmic vapors of the place. 
Golaud is showing Pelléas the dire spot, and at first you 
have visions of possible fratricide or the administering 
of some weird, awful oath at midnight. Not at all; it 
isn’t midnight to begin with; it is the middle of a bright 
forenoon and honest Golaud is showing Pelléas these 
caverns for the most modern and human of reasons. In 
plain English—the plumbing of this royal castle is in 
bad shape; a good high-priced union man is needed! But 
the bright lexicon of Grand Opera knows no such word. 
The vast vaults need repairing and closing up; their con- 
dition has perhaps occasioned the sickness now in the 
house. This much Golaud knows and what we would 
call sewer-gas he euphemistically refers to as “the odor 
of death.” He is merely showing his brother the existing 
condition as a preamble, we presume, to a discussion 
about needed expenditures. So much for the plain, 
materialistic meaning of the brief scene. 

But true art dictates that one should see poetry in 
everything. A better instance you will never find of 
carrying out this mandate. Maeterlinck has here, with 
amazing mastery, unearthed poetry in a cesspool. Do 
not toss your head and turn away with contempt, as at 
something far-fetched and overdone. Take my word 
for it, the allegory of this depressing scene is one of the 
superb touches of the story. All life, according to 
Maeterlinck, is merely a tottering structure reared above 
the awful chasm of death. Now and then we contemplate 
the awfulness, go down into the depths, as Golaud and 


“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE” 138 


Pelléas are here doing, and grow dizzy and helpless at 
the prospect. VPelléas nearly slips on the slimy rock, as 
he leans over to peer into the deep scum-covered pool. 

Too much investigation into the black mystery that 
surrounds us is dangerous. Golaud and Pelléas hasten 
out again. As for the music! If we had our suspicions 
about the whole-tone scale before, those suspicions are 
now confirmed. All the scintillating witchery of its 
unholy sequences are now gone, and the blanched bones 
and naked soul of the creature are here disclosed, grovel- 
ling in the lowest of bass depths. All the discords of 
Hell seem to be gnawing at each other in that boiling 
caldron of cacophony. One key won't hold them. 
Debussy has diabolically turned loose two unrelated keys 
at once; some of the growling instruments play in one 
key, while others grumble in another. They seem to 
know that they are playing with the graves and ghosts 
of the accursed; therefore they play very softly and 
therefore this brief glimpse of purgatory is endurable. 
But the whole-tone scale! We know her now for what 
she is! Babylon the Great has fallen—she who lived 
deliciously, who in former scenes drew to herself, by 
means of ravishing harmonies, visions of “‘purple and 
fine linen, pearls and silver and precious stones, chariots 
and slaves and—the souls of men” is now forsaken and 
desolate—no longer clothed with chords of rainbow 
hue—she is sunken, fallen, to the lowest region of the 
staff. Stand afar off—for the fear of her torment! The 
music is now nothing but a deep tremolo and a gasp. 

Pelléas and Golaud and the lantern disappear. 

The scene shifts and a moment later we see them 
emerging, half-fainting, onto the terrace in front of the 
castle. The music has emerged likewise into the upper 


136 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


air. Harp and piccolo and flute—sunshine, birds and 
ozone! And plain Christian harmonies; God bless them! 
If you have ever known purity of atmosphere after a 
storm; the gleam of a smile after tears; the joy of the 
condemned when proven innocent—then you can imagine 
the elixir in this ethereal music. The harps and strings 
are all aflutter like birds tossing raindrops from their 
wings, and over all sounds a bright pealing carillon, the 
tower-bells chiming the noon-hour. Ever and always 
the stroke of twelve! What means the ominous hour 
this time? Nothing much that we can discern. To be 
sure, on seeing Mélisande and Genevieve on the parapet 
of the tower, Golaud pauses to give Pelléas a bit of 
warning. All brotherly and kindly it is. He tells him 
to keep away from Mélhsande as much as possible; he 
has noticed their growing fondness for each other—no 
harm in it so far, of course—but Pelléas is the elder of 
the two and wiser; it is his duty to avoid entangling 
Mélisande’s untrained emotions. ‘She is but a child yet, 
altho in way of becoming a mother; any shock to her 
might be disastrous.” 

He says all this in few words; they are not weighted 
with any deep unusual meaning, yet still we have heard 
the noon-hour sounded, which merely means that our 
slightest speech or deed—the one we note the least— 
may be the turning-point of destiny. 

As he refers to her impending motherhood, there is 
heard in the orchestra, a transformed version of the 
familiar little, timid, childish Mélisande-theme. It is 
now utterly sedate and prim. The two stumbling little 
eighth notes of the second beat are combed into line and 
file into place now as very methodical quarter notes, and 
the entire little company is now garbed in the gray uni- 





COURTESY OF ‘*MUSICAL COURIER,’’ N. Y. 


GARDEN AS “MELISANDE” IN “‘PELLEAS AND MELISANDE”’ 


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“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE” 137 


form of minor chords. The battle of life is ahead of 
them—those erstwhile listless straggling notes of the 
M élisande-theme. | 

Scene IV of the third act is as noteworthy as scene I. 
It is again the tower scene showing the window of 
Mélisande’s room. A new character is introduced to us; 
the child Ymold, a boy of six or seven is led to the bench 
beneath the window by Golaud, his father. He, Golaud, 
has not forgotten that window, nor the scene he saw 
enacted there neath the moonlight recently. The serpent- 
bite of jealousy has stung deep. He is slow-going and 
well-meaning always, this elderly prince with the strange 
child-wife. His mind is a bit sluggish but not without 
resources. He has devised a scheme to learn the truth 
and perhaps, God willing, to quench the fires that torture 
him. He will question the child, who is fond of his 
stepmother and is often with her and Pelléas. He takes 
the boy on his lap. Poor Golaud; he might as well ques- 
tion the wind. 

“What do little Mother and Uncle Pelléas talk of 
when together ?” 

“They talk of me.” 

“What do they say of you?” 

“That Til grow big.” 

“Do they never talk of me?” 

“Yes, sometimes.” 

“What do they say of me?” 

“They say I’ll grow big like you.” 

Golaud tries another tack: 

“Do they never send you away to play?” 

“No, they’re afraid.” 

“Afraid! How do you know they are afraid?” 


138 OPRERAVAN DSS TRS 


“Because they cry—and that makes me cry too,” the 
artless boy adds impressively. 

It makes the music weep as well. The piteous wail in 
the orchestra is enough to call forth tears from the 
hearer. 

Golaud, nearly suffocating from the pain in his heart, 
asks further: 

“Do they never kiss each other?” 

“Kiss ?—no,”’ the boy answers indifferently, but then 
corrects himself—‘‘yes—once, when it was raining.” 

Even the heavens are weeping now—in the sad, soft 
sob of the violins that accompanies this story of the kiss. 

“Tell me—tell me, how did they kiss?” asks the tor- 
tured man, always trying to subdue his tones to an air 
of indifference. 

The boy is amused at this question, and promptly gives 
his father a childish kiss on the mouth. 

“Like this, of course!” 

This child’s phrases—the chords that accompany 
them—are simple and of the utmost harmonic purity; 
discords and heart-pangs are unknown to him. They 
hover all about him however; the air is full of pain—of 
which he wots not. | 

A light presently appears in the tower window; the 
“little mother’ has lit her lamp. 

“Would you like to see her?” Golaud asks, a mad idea 
seizing upon him. “I will lift you up on my shoulders— 
but don’t make a noise; it would frighten her.” 

So the unwitting boy is used as a spy to peer into the 
window which is beyond the father’s reach. 

‘What do you see?” he cries softly. “Is little mother 
alone?” 


“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE” 139 


“Yes—no; uncle Pelléas is there. Father, you hurt 
mel” 

“Hush, speak softly,” pleads the frantic man. “Tell 
me, what are they doing?” 

“Just sitting there, looking at each other.” 

“Don’t they speak or draw near to each other?” 

“No, they say nothing; they don’t move. Let me down, 
father. You hurt me.” 

The music hurts too; it 1s palpitant and still—subdued 
like Golaud’s voice—but torn apart by the tones of an 
upreaching theme that is half submerged by the accom- 
paniment through which it seems trying to extricate itself 
like a tortured dreamer endeavoring to awake. Higher 
and higher the struggling theme forces its way until it 
breaks loose and crashes against another theme that was 
first sounded when Golaud learned of that one kiss. It 
has grown strong now and strident, but Mélisande and 
Pelléas in the tower do not hear it, nor does Yniold have 
ears to hear. Poor, blind Golaud himself does not know 
that all the air is vibrant with his pain. We _ never 
know—we never know—how our inmost thoughts have 
set the universe a-quivering. 


Things are stirring in the first scene of act IV, very 
stirring. The instrumental prelude, as the curtain rises 
on a hall in the castle, is genuinely animated; not ener- 
getic or virile, but alive and a bit hurried. Pelléas and 
Mélisande enter from different sides and meet. He has 
a hasty word with her, partly to tell her that his father 
is better this morning and now there is nothing to hinder 
him from going upon the postponed journey. Yes—he 
has decided to go. It is best; but he wants to see her 
alone before he leaves, just once alone. Will she meet 


140 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


him to-night at the old fountain of the blind? At men- 
tion of this fountain we hear a faint flutter of the Sun-— 
shine-theme which accompanied them when they first met 
there. Will she meet him? 

“Yes.” Mélsande is always acquiescent; she is too 
timid and polite to say “no.” There are no great reason- — 
ing spaces in Méhsande’s brain. 

Scarcely have the two parted, Pelléas going out and 
Mélisande remaining, when old King Arkel enters. He 
has a great deal to say ina kindly way. The recovery of 
Pelléas’s father cheers the whole castle and Arkel hopes 
poor Mélisande will find things livelier now. He has 
pitied her these past months—a newcomer in this gloomy 
abode—the whole place hushed by the nearness of death. 
All that is passed now and she shall yet rejoice in youth 
and happiness. 

A grim leer at life is all this on the part of Maeterlinck, 
for just when Death is supposed to have fled, just then 
he is lurking nearest. The old King does not note the 
flashes of discord that illumine the orchestral horizon like 
sudden forks of lightning. Apart from these the musical 
firmament is full of harmony and gentle tone-colors that 
soothe and caress. By these the kindly monarch is 
deceived. When Fate seems asleep—beware! There has 
been no hint of the Fate-theme lately, and the hour of 
twelve—it has ceased to sound. But when the caldron 
of calamity no longer boils—have a care lest the kettle 
has merely been lifted for its seething contents to be 
poured upon you. 

The music has calmed down—mild as a grand father’s 
kiss—and then there is suddenly a touch of distraction. 
Golaud enters, in a mood that bears no tampering with. 
Three more peasants have lately died of starvation. 


“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE” 141 


“They seem to expire purposely in sight of the castle.” 
This is the reason he gives for his temper. He calls for 
his sword. Mélsande hands it to him meekly—too 
meekly! Why does she look at him like that? He is 
not going to kill her! Does she imagine he has discovered 
anything? Thus he rails at her. 

Mélisande, like a timid forest creature when startled or 
alarmed, merely stands immobile. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” he yells. “Do you see 
those eyes, grandfather?” 

“T see a great innocency in them,” the old man replies. 

At this Golaud loses all control of himself. 

“Innocent! So innocent that God himself could take 
lessons from them! So liquid pure that one would think 
the angels of Heaven were forever baptizing themselves 
therein! Oh, they are wonderful eyes! Close them!” 
he shouts. “Keep them shut—or I'll close them for 
you!” 

He suddenly grabs her by the hair; those long braided 
strands fill him with fury as he recalls the scene at the 
tower-window. 

“To your knees,” he shrieks, as he throws her down, 
still holding her hair. “Your long golden hair shall be 
of some use for once!” 

He yanks her back and forth by the golden strands. 
This of course is all symbolical of our own hapless 
struggles in the hands of relentless Fate. 

In the orchestra Golaud’s theme of jealousy, first met 
with in the preceding act, is tortured and banged about 
quite as mercilessly as Mélisande is on the stage. There 
is a fling of scale, or an accented chord, with every jerk 
of her hair. The grandfather looks on for some time in 
quiet amazement, evidently swayed by the prevailing 


142 OPERACANDEDUS SOARS 


sentiment of the period which allowed a gentleman to 
use his own methods in managing his wife. But he 
finally steps forward with an admonishing word—and 
Golaud suddenly stops the athletics. He laughs piteously 
and assures Mélisande amid his half-crazed “ha-ha’’ that 
her actions really do not concern him; he is too old to 
care. 

His own age and her youth are evidently a sore point 
with him. He goes out, while Mélisande repeats her 
erstwhile wail: 

“T am so unhappy.” 

The ensuing intermezzo is of compelling energy and 
ablaze with meaning . It is set like a signal light to warn 
of coming danger. The Fate-theme gleams in all direc- 
tions; its piercing vibrations shoot out from every corner 
of the orchestra. The glowing theme is flashed forth in 
all possible ways, reflected into a blinding glare by the 
orchestral brass. It is frantically flung hither and thither 
by the agitated conductor whose struggles with the on- 
rushing harmonies suggest a hero battling with the 
elements. His baton seems a flaring torch waved back 
and forth to ward off impending catastrophe. The night 
is dark and he has seen, and we have seen, two frail 
drifting barks headed toward the rocks. Wall they note 
the signals—will they heed them? 

We are not long left in doubt. The Fountain of the 
Blind is a fitting spot for the last meeting-place of Pelléas 
and Mélisande. For they are blind—utterly blind—and 
the fountain holds no healing for them. The fountain 
is dead and deep; the tall black yew trees are funereal 
and the white still light of a full-orbed moon is spread 
upon the scene like a winding-sheet. 

Pelléas enters first and then Mélisande—she is out of 


“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE”’ 143 


breath and hurried. She is late because Golaud was slow 
in going to sleep; he had a nightmare. And then in her 
haste, as she left the house, her gown caught on a thorn- 
bush and was torn. All nature, you see, has been striving 
to hold back these hapless lovers; even the kindly thorn- 
tree extending a detaining hand—and the music all about 
them! If only they would listen—give ear and heed. 
There is wailing in the music like the sigh of lost souls! 
And the Fate-theme ever and always in every wind that 
blows—in the twitter of the night-birds—in the rustle 
of the trees. Did they but have ears to hear—those dark 
dire tones are ever whispering at them, striving to be 
heard. After all it may be that this opera is not merely 
a picture of pessimism; perhaps it is a preachment, an 
admonishment, that we all should listen more earnestly 
to the ever-present still small voice. 

But there are so many other voices! A sultry twang 
of plucked double-thirds reminds Pelléas and Mélsande 
of their first meeting at this fountain, in the heat of 
noon-day. Now they are meeting for the last time— 
to say good-by, and to say—“‘I love you.” 

They say it softly; the instruments are hushed—not a 
breeze, not a moonbeam quivers—the director’s baton is 
well-nigh suspended. ‘Then very faintly we hear a 
reminiscent chord or two echoing the troubled harmonies 
so lately sounded, but so low and pianissimo now as to 
suggest merely a regretful sigh on the lips of one of the 
watching Norn-maidens as she reaches for her shears. 
Then Debussy softly modulates with one sweep of the 
harp his indefinite dark gray chords of sullen minor into 
a flashing glory of mellow major that engulfs all the 
Senses in a rapture of beauty. There is something ever 
and always of the elixir of youth in the transition from 


144 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


minor to major. Perhaps if the thrill of it could be 
prolonged, old age would melt into a shadow. Debussy 
has here made a good semblance of prolonging the 
ecstasy—by the sheer power of the crystalline harmony 
which upholds his dream-laden melody. After the bitter 
and gall that preceded it, this goblet of joy goes-whirling 
to the brain and singing to the heart. But there is no 
longer hope for poor Pelléas and Mélisande once they 
have drunk of its delirium. Pelléas is deaf to the Fate- 
theme; he only hears the tones of Mélisande’s voice. He 
does not heed the waning moon; he only notes the light 
in her eyes. ‘Time and the world are annihilated. So 
be it! 

A grinding burst of chords in the orchestra announces 
the closing of the castle gates—the clanking of the draw- 
bridge as the hour of midnight sounds. So be it. Too 
late now—all is lost. 

“No—all is won!” cries Pelléas, clasping Mélisande in 
his arms, while the mounting madness of the music, 
sweeping onward like a tidal wave, discovers strange 
unearthly harmonies never heard on sea or land. Then 
suddenly with a necromancy all his own Debussy has this 
foaming crest of tortured minor slip all unaware into 
that melting major theme of love. | 

All of Debussy’s themes have the power of appearing 
in many guises; a raised note here, a suspended one in 
the bass, an altered rhythm—and behold an entirely new 
color to the strange creature. So varying and overpower- 
ing is the subtle quiet power of this love-theme, as it 
slowly uncoils its way into prominence, that you can see 
in it the enticing potency of a basilisk; it is the serpent in 
the garden of Eden. 

The lovers have kissed; their lips have tasted of the 


“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE” 145 


fruit that for the moment seems indeed to make them as 
gods. 

Then a shadow mars the brightness—a veritable 
shadow, which Mélisande sees. 

“There is some one behind us, 
hushed tones. 

Golaud—the symbol of Fate throughout the entire 
opera—has followed the lovers. 

Very awful are the ensuing moments. FPelléas is un- 
armed, there is nothing for him but death—death and 
one last kiss, which he takes in spite of Fate, while in the 
orchestra the love-theme—now a veritable wine of 
oblivion—is poured forth in a splendor of chords that 
proclaim in one crash of terrible beauty that the golden 
bowl is broken. 

At that instant Golaud emerges, passion-blinded; his 
sword with one blow fells his brother, and Mélisande 
rushes shrieking into the forest. 

Then with demoniacal joy the Fate-theme comes forth 
into the open, without a shred of either concord or dis- 
cord to cover its nakedness; it bobs up in the orchestra, 
ugly and awful, like a leering imp a-squat on a toadstool. 


” she exclaims in awe- 


Act V has only one scene; a bedroom in the castle. 
Mélisande lies before us; her golden hair upon the pillow, 
the one high light in the room. 

Pale death is in the orchestra; a sequence of single 
tones on the strings that suggest a world-weariness only 
the dying can know. Old King Arkel is present and the 
physician; he shakes his head as he looks at the sick-bed ; 
Golaud is seated in a corner depressed and bowed with 
remorse. There is also one other person present; in a 
crib by the bed lies a new-born babe. 


146 OPBRATAIND FIG uss 


In the midst of death there is life. 

The doctor and old Arkel try to comfort Golaud who 
believes he has not only sent Pelléas to his grave, but is 
also the cause of the present grim catastrophe of life 
and death. 

Mélisande awakens feebly and asks for more light; 
when Arkel opens the window she notes the setting sun. 
Maeterlinck, you see, has done with the stroke of twelve. 
All interest now is centered in the passing day. 

The sick woman recognizes Arkel. (It is her first 
conscious moment since her illness.) She asks Arkel 
who else is in the room. Poor Golaud creeps forward 
praying for recognition. He has been panting for this 
hour to come. She speaks his name gently, without a 
quiver of pain at the memory. The reason for this is 
made plain by the music, which gives us something of 
the prescience of Omnipotence; we can discern the 
thought behind the words. Music can reveal what words 
conceal. Among the tender, simple harmonies that accom- 
pany Mélsande’s voice lurks a theme that hovered about 
Golaud when first they met in the forest far away—and 
long ago. Her thoughts are there—not here. But 
Golaud does not sense this; he only knows that she is 
conscious, and may now be able to answer the question 
that burns his soul asunder. 

He sends everyone from the room and then, on his 
knees, begs her first to forgive him. Her answers are 
as distraught as were poor little Yniold’s when the frantic 
father tried to elicit words that might quiet his jealousy. 

Méhsande forgives Golaud sweetly and promptly: 

“Of course; what is there to forgive?” 

Still the tortured man plunges on with his questioning : 

“Tell me Mélisande—tell me—did you love Pelléas?” 


“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE” 147 


She answers promptly and all innocently, ‘Yes, I 
loved Pelléas. Where is he?” 

The memory softly sounded in the orchestra now is 
that of her first happy meeting with Pelléas at the foun- 
tain in the noon-hour long ago. 

Golaud is writhing in an agony of remorse; an agony 
that is sounded in the orchestra like a prayer shrieked 
from Hades, sweltering in a boiling sea of discords, 
pressed down by a weight of darkness and obscurity. 

“Mélisande,” he cries, “tell me, was it a guilty love? 
Yes—only say yes!’ | 

And out of the chaos in the orchestra sounds his one 
hope—a memory of the love-theme, of the kiss he saw— 
that last kiss. If it was but the kiss of innocence then 
his killing of Pelléas was not just revenge but foul mur- 
der. Therefore he prays that her answer be “‘yes.” 

She hears him plainly and answers distinctly and 
always so gently: 

“We were not either of us guilty. Why do you ask 
that?” 

In the orchestra we hear her thoughts still clinging to 
the gracious kindly theme of Pelléas’s first regard for her 
long ago—in the noon-hour. 

Poor Golaud groans and begs for the truth—‘‘the truth 
as from the dying.” 

“The dying! Who is dying?” she asks quite disin- 
terestedly and in a far-away voice. 

Golaud, frightened at the harm his useless questions 
may have done, summons the others into the room. 

He knows now—that he will never know, which all 
means, perhaps, that Fate is forever blind—for Goloud 
represents Fate. 


148 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


‘Arkel speaks to Mélisande again and asks if she will 
not look at her child? 

“What child?” the dying woman asks. 

“Your little daughter,” answers Arkel. He holds the 
child for her to see, while a new faint theme is heard in 
the orchestra. Mélhsande leans over to look at the babe 
and observes: 

“Tt is so little; it is going to weep; I am sorry for it.” 

As she lies back again, the maid-servants of the castle, 
all robed in black, softly file into the room. Golaud 
wonders why they have come; Arkel, too, is surprized— 
who summoned them? No one. This is all a mystic 
touch reminiscent of Maeterlinck’s playlet, “The In- 
truder.”’ Death announces his coming in mysterious 
ways. The maids have come, and the maids kneel in 
prayer, altho no one has told them that death has entered. 
Golaud turns to the bed; the face on the pillow is white, 
the mouth has fallen open. Golaud calls out despair- 
ingly—‘‘Mélisande!’ He longs yet to speak to her; 
Arkel hushes him. 

“We should speak in whispers now; we must disturb 
her no more, for the soul is a creature of silence.” 

There are high pianissimo chords among the strings 
now, pure in harmony and floating in the air like random 
snow-flakes a-gleam in the moonlight. Softly veiled by 
their misty loveliness, the soul of Mélisande is wafted 
Heavenward. 

The doctor gives a signal that she is gone. 

“She has gone without telling me,” poor Golaud sobs; 
and then Arkel, the sage, tries to comfort. He tells him 
it was not his fault, “‘altho it all is dreadful.”’ The Fate- 
theme never misses a cue; it proclaims itself promptly 
and confidently at this word, “dreadful.” 


“PELLEAS AND MELISANDE” 149 


Then Arkel turns toward the white figure on the bed. 

“She was aye such a quiet little creature—timid and 
silent; a lonely little, sad, mysterious being—as we all 
are: | 

The soul of Mélisande still hovers near in the music; 
the fragmentary bits of themes that made up her small life 
are here touched upon in the orchestra; she seems still 
present in spirit. 

“We must go now,” urges Arkel, ‘and take the child 
with us; it must live on and replace her. ’Tis the turn 
of the poor little creature. Such is life.” ? 

And the music softly sobs into silence—the lights melt 
into dimness, and all is over. 


CHAPTER VII 
A MORNING CALL ON FRIEDA HEMPEL 


HERE is ever the thrill of adventure in breaking 
A Price: the ramparts that hedge a prima donna. 
The authorities below stairs always eye you with interest 
when in spite of their Cerberean attitude word comes 
from on high that you are granted admittance. From that 
moment you feel their brains energized into action, busy 
wondering who you are, tho still firmly fixed in the con- 
viction that you are a woman of no importance—this for 
the excellent reason that your name is unknown to them. 
Trust every bell-boy magnifico and elevator magnate, 
where a prima donna dwells, to master at once the com- 
plete list of Metropolitan singers, and to acquire a trip- 
ping—if not a tipping—familiarity with the size of their 
salaries Therefore, if unknown to them as either a singer 
or a society nabob, you are promptly relegated to the 
mob of mediocrity—a manicurist perhaps, or a dress- 
maker, or a composer. But this time I had an experience 
quite refreshing and jolly; I was no longer classed among 
the commonplace—I was suspicioned as a burglar. The 
front door dignitary had passed me on to the telephone 
nymph who in turn had handed me over to the judicious 
mercy of the madonna of the elevator. She took me 
half-way up, then—changing her mind—took me down 
again to make sure she had heard aright and that I was 
not breaking in unlawfully. 


But, bless you, I could not blame her. On that day all 
150 


FRIEDA HEMPEL I51 


the newspapers were headlining a $50,000 robbery from 
Frieda Hempel’s apartment. It was no press-agent 
fantasy; Madame Hempel is much too busy and tired to 
indulge in dramatics when not on the stage. She had 
been plundered of her most prized possessions—jewels 
famous for their association as well as their worth. 
Equally upsetting was the loss of most of her personal 
apparel. 

“You can’t imagine how maddening is the thought of 
some one ransacking your sleeping-room—your private 
belongings.” She was full up of the subject and could 
hardly speak of anything else. 

“T am really unstrung; I did not close my eyes last 
night—please pardon my nervousness.” 

I found myself suddenly aroused to a Freudian interest 
in noting how a prima donna deports herself when “un- 
strung.’ I even hoped for a glimpse of the tempera- 
mental lightning which we are told keeps the atmosphere 
phosphorescent back-stage of the Metropolitan. 

There was plenty of bric-a-brac in her reception room 
and a tiled floor to break it on, but all that I saw was 
still intact. 

Madame Hempel’s blonde hair was simply arranged 
and revealed no evidence of frantic fingers run through 
it. In her bearing there was no sign of restlessness; no 
meaningless toss of the hand or tap of the heel. I pur- 
sued my pathological observations by asking whether she 
was ever nervous when she sings. 

Frieda Hempel’s answer was astonishing: 

“Terribly nervous—always nervous—and I hope I 
always will be!’ 

Noting my surprize, she continued: “If I lost my 
nervousness, | should know I was becoming indifferent. 


152 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


To be an artist one must be keenly sensitive and high- 
strung. I am so anxious and nervous sometimes that 
my hands are like ice and my knees shake.” | 

Yet, in spite of this fact, let me say right here that no 
figure of more poise ever appeared on the stage than 
Frieda Hempel in her famed song recitals. Madame 
Hempel is one of the few Grand-Opera singers who, 
emulating the great Sembrich, can challenge the world 
as a Lieder-singer. This is a term that means more than 
its dictionary definition; it implies a mastery of Bel 
Canto. This too is a term with an illusive import other 
than its literal translation. Through years of studio 
jargon and general acceptance Bel Canto has come to 
mean a perfect legato. If you know not the meaning 
of legato in singing—then haste you at once to hear 
Frieda Hempel sing Mozart, and mark how the notes 
are joined together without slurring; each one so per- 
fectly melted into the next that it is all like a stream of 
pure gold poured into a delicate mold. To sing thus one 
must not only have a rare voice and rare musical insight, 
but also the trained ability to maintain these at will and 
in spite of quaking nerves—; a perfect balance of tone 
and spirit. 

This attainment is a high reach in self-mastery; it is 
something I bow to—for self-mastery is God-like, tho by 
no means God-given. It comes only from long habit in 
doing the thing you do not feel like doing; forcing your- 
self to it at the appointed time even tho no other necessity 
requires it than the necessity of keeping faith with 
yourself. 

“I practise every morning of my life, as regularly as 
IT eat my breakfast. Even when I travel I never omit 
doing at least one hour of vocalizing.” 





© UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD. 


FRrIEDA HEMPEL 


FRIEDA HEMPEL 153 


Remember this does not include the study of new 
music—memorizing, phrasing, and so forth; it means 
merely the work required to keep the vocal mechanism 
responsive to command after it already has been perfected 
by years of persistent work. 

But the true artist is never satisfied. Tho the public 
applaud and critics acclaim, the true artist still aspires. 
It is his or her mission to discover, to blaze trails, to find 
new regions of light. Madame Hempel has done this. 
When she came to us at the Metropolitan she was already 
a radiant singer with a flexible voice, sweet, clear, and 
reliable; her first tone always sure and pure as her last. 
She came with a coloratura equipment that could com- 
pass with a smile and no effort the opulent splendor of 
decoration Meyerbeer has given to his “Queen of Valois” 
and Mozart to his “Queen of the Night.” But colorature 
was by no means her only realm. She created here the 
role of the Marchese in Strauss’s “‘Rosenkavalier’’—an 
opera unadorned by trill or roulade from the first page 
to the last of its polyphonic pageantry. Astonishingly 
varied are the seventy-four operas in which Madame 
Hempel has appeared. From Verdi to Wagner is a far 
field. Clad as a nyad afloat on the river that guards the 
Nibelung gold, she has flung forth her voice in the woo- 
ing wonder of the Rheindaughter’s Song in “Gotterdam- 
merung.”’ The next night on the same stage we find her 
afloat in the firmament (no allegory—this is literal) 
clothed in a web of night and stars and some tulle, sing- 
ing to high heaven the scintillating music of Astrofia- 
mente in Mozart’s “Magic Flute.” What more could 
one long for? Frieda Hempel herself probably did not 
know what she still was striving for, but the unceasing 
- urge of the artist kept her at it. However, we know now 


154 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


what it was that Frieda Hempel dimly dreamed of; in 
recent years she has cast upon her voice a new tone- 
quality. The general public may hardly know what it is 
she has done, but they fill Carnegie Hall to hear her; 
fill it many times through the season, and this, I can not 
recall their ever doing so persistently except in the days 
of the glory that was Sembrich. , 

Frieda Hempel has of late flashed over her tones a 
mirror-like quality, smooth, glistening, and aglow with 
reflections. To hear Hempel sing songs in this year of 
Grace, Nineteen Hundred and Twenty-four, is to hear 
Peace on Earth, the Benediction of Repose, and the 
joyous rapture of absolute tonal beauty. 

One reads of prima donnas doing dreadful things— 
indulging in giddy suppers, and even in an occasional 
divorce. It may be they do—it may be—I don’t know; 
but I think it always well to note carefully the color of 
the paper that prints such reports, and also to consider 
the rank of the singer referred to. In the whole world 
there is seldom, at one time, more than ten or a dozen 
of these super Grand-Opera stars. I may be too worship- 
ful in my admiration of their achievements, but I stoutly 
maintain that it is better to admire too much than too 
little. J also maintain that to keep one’s voice for many 
years at its best—one’s mind ever clear and one’s body ever 
supple—requires an amount of discipline that leaves little 
time or energy for the ignoble or frivolous. They have 
a mission, these mighty singers; each one guards a chalice 
of song, a gift God intended to be cherished and used to 
pour forth upon a parching world the life-giving wine 
of melody. Each one of the elect—remember there are 
few of them—each one finds her-destiny demanding a 
life of sacrifice and hard restrictions; restrictions as 


FRIEDA HEMPEL 155 


rigid as those that bind the life of a cloistered recluse 
who guards the flame of an altar. There is this difference 
however: the singer endures a perpetual fear of failing 
in her efforts; the flame she feeds may flicker and fade 
even as she holds it up in the presence of the pulsing 
multitude. Let this once occur—just once—and that 
instant perdition falls upon her. As a recompense for 
this unending alarm she receives—so long as the flame 
burns bright—a sustaining wave of applause. The 
recluse at the altar has none of this applause, but neither 
has he the abiding terror. 

“Tt is a life of sacrifice from first to last.” Madame 
Hempel is speaking. “But the public never believes this. 
They imagine us enjoying midnight suppers, bathing in 
champagne, and generally carousing. | assure you we 
are busy every minute, and have time for nothing but 
work,” 

In words even blunter than these Geraldine Farrar 
once stated to me the same fact. 

“Tt’s a dog’s life; I intend to get out of it when [’m 
forty.” And she did. 

One demand upon their time, seldom thought of, is 
that required to be decently courteous—just half-way 
polite—to the would-be composers who send their work 
for commendation, or a possible public hearing. Unend- 
ing is the shower of these manuscripts, descending upon 
the hapless prima donna. They arrive by each mail, 
and by personal presentation; every friend has a friend 
who composes. A famed opera-singer comes at last to 
believe that the rest of the world never sleeps but sits up 
all night writing music. “And such music!’ Madame 
Hempel threw up her hands. “It is amazing what man- 
ner of compositions people send me; the scribbled stuff 


156 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


they call music! I assure you my cook could do better 
than some of them.” 

This indictment is not so damaging as it sounds, for 
Madame’s cook, be it known, is a character, both capable 
and versatile; if she chose to write music she doubtless 
would devise something worth looking at—at least once. 

All this I know because I happen to have a friend who 
is an intimate friend of the family. (If only that tele- 
phone damsel had known this!) 

To this friend I am also indebted for a favorite phrase 
of the Diva’s, one that habitually falls from her lips in 
life’s most stressful moments—even during the hurricane 
upheaval of packing a dozen trunks the day before sail- 
ing for a European tour; a day when all is confusion, 
when music gets mislaid, costumes mixed up, the tele- 
phone rings steadily, and ultimate chaos seems imminent ; 
even in such hours of trial Frieda Hempel’s quiet voice 
will be heard admonishing all about her: 

“Don’t worry—don’t hurry; it will all come out right.” 
A good working philosophy this, to keep by one. 

May be I am something of a burglar after all, having 
picked up this sentence sans her knowledge! But none 
the less I feel justified in using it, for it tells a great deal 
about her; it definitely expresses the real Frieda Hempel. 


CHAPTER VIII 
peu bil NAGI as 


OZART’S first big success as a Grand Opera 

composer was achieved in his fifteenth year, and 

this, mind you, after four previous operas of less acclaim 
had helped to make him famous. 

Some time, when you are fifteen, suppose you try writ- 
ing an opera; see whether you have the patience to put 
down the notes, to say nothing of the genius to think of 
them. If anyone doubts the statement of Mozart’s age 
when “Lucia Silla” was produced in Milan, let him but 
read the letter young Wolfgang wrote to his sister in 
Salzburg the day before the first rehearsal. The rattling 
buoyancy of this dashed-off missive, its bubbling non- 
sense, is a veritable school-boy shout. He even turned 
the paper when writing it and penned every other line 
upside down! 

“When this reaches you, my dear sister, my opera will 
be in rehearsal. Just try and imagine that my dear sister 
hears italso. But I beg of you, don’t say a syllable about 
it or too many people would come crowding in. . 
To-morrow we dine with Herr von Mayer—and do you 
know why? Guess! Because he invited us! . .. The 
rehearsal to-morrow is to be in the theater. | 

“Apropos—do you know what happened here? I will 
relate it. We were coming straight home from Count 
Firmani’s and when we entered our street we opened 
our door—and what do you think happened? We went 
in! Good-by, my Pet, 


“Your unworthy Frater.” 
157 


158 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


It was in Vienna a score of years later that Mozart 

penned into place the final chord of his last and greatest 
opera—“The Magic Flute’”—his spirit still radiant and 
child-like as when he so merrily exulted over his first 
finale. We know this from the music pealed forth by 
his “Magic Flute’; it is soul-moving, it has depth, it has 
star-reaching heights of beauty, but it has, too, simplicity 
and abounding joy. We can imagine him writing in much 
the same vein to “Nannerl” the day before his Magic 
Opus blew into being. 
- But not the day after. The Viennese, alas! did not 
shout and halloo loud “Bravos” over this his master- 
piece. “Lucia Silla” was an instant success—and is now 
forgotten. “Il Flauto Magico” was a failure, and is now 
immortal. Only the discerning ones—standing high 
themselves on the peaks of genius—only these were up- 
lifted enough to perceive the glory. Beethoven pro- 
nounced this opera to be Mozart’s greatest. 

But be assured Beethoven was not referring to the 
plot. No one ever speaks of the story of “The Magic 
Flute” without a twisted expression of countenance that 
implies puzzled ignorance or frank ridicule. In fact one 
so often hears of the absurdity and senseless intricacy 
of “The Magic Flute” that to tackle the dissecting of it 
requires some courage. There is even an awful rumor 
to the effect that a close scrutiny of the subject will dis- 
close hidden symbols and mystic teachings of Free- 
masonry. This in itself is enough to keep the entire 
present-day operatic public from studying the libretto. 
No one wishes to mix his music with Masonry, however 
free it may be. | 

So with moods and misgivings much similar to those 
depicted when Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came, 


mer BONEN GIO rR EU TR: 159 


I took my courage in hand and pressed forward. But 
on coming close up to the scary thing I find that like 
many other bogys of grim repute this, too, is made of 
pasteboard. In the first place I find that, if you get the 
right viewpoint, it is not a bad plot after all—if you like 
that sort of a plot. And furthermore I find, and hereby 
proclaim, that the chief reason for its maddening confu- 
sion is the senseless similarity of names given to the 
principal characters. Imagine the average opera-goer 
who scurries through his libretto before the curtain rises 
and while late-comers are apologizing their way past 
him, and his opera-glass and program are intermittently 
requiring rescue—imagine him trying to remember that 
Tamino is the hero and Pamuina the heroine. (They are 
merely “Pam ‘sand, ‘Tam’ in the libretto.) Even’ if:he 
is superhuman enough to master this distinction, he will 
surely submerge under the strain of disassociating the 
next two principal characters who are lightly named 
Papageno and Papagena. 

A more lengthy and ponderous list of characters has 
never that I know of been perpetrated in Grand Opera. 
Such a pomposity of nomenclature would be enough to 
kill any art-work were it not kept alive by the music of 
Mozart. Let me throw these names at you at once and 
be done with it. If you get used to them early, you may 
learn to like them. Aside from the four I have men- 
tioned there is Sarastro, Astrafiamente, Monostatos, 
Aretusa, Iperatusa—besides several ‘‘Genie,” “Sarcedot- 
tam Oratori, and: “Armed Men?’ » (These last are 
designated as “First and Second Uomo Armato.”) All 
these besides the chorus. No wonder the poor libretto 
is all top-heavy with names. Even the list of those who 
clam to have written it, is one of considerable weight. 


160 OPERA: AND ITS STARS 


Of these claimants the two most prominent are Herr 
Schickaneder and Herr Giesecke. They hated each 
other, and fought it out by chewing and clawing at 
that libretto—in point of fact the thing was built up 
like a modern ‘“‘movie’’—half a dozen, or half a hundred 
had a hand in it, more or less. No wonder poor Mozart 
never lived to write another opera. ‘The various read- 
justments he was requested to make in tuning up this 
Magic Flute were enough to drive him mad. The first 
requirement, it seems, was to evolve something scenic— 
an opera full of sprites and dragons and weird enchant- 
ments; this because the manager, Herr Schickaneder, 
happened to have a fine assortment of Christmas panto- 
mime stuff on hand and wanted to use it, and further- 
more because a recent “magic” opera at another theater 
had proved a great success. And finally, and_ still 
- furthermore, the genial manager himself was an actor 
and singer with a talent for the grotesque. So he 
demanded a comedy role in the opera, with lots of lively 
arias—the more the better. But this does not mean that 
he wanted a comic opera. No, no—he wanted a serious 
opera—you understand—with a high, deep motive, but 
through it all a steady play of comedy. He finally pro- 
posed writing this part of the libretto himself. He did 
so, devising enough doggerel to keep him conspicuous 
on the stage for about eight hours running. He was 
polite and concessive however about cutting this down, 
but he still saw to it that his role of Papageno (“geno,” 
not “gena’’) had as much to do as the hero—and more 
in the matter of solos. 

From Herr Schickaneder’s point of view the libretto 
was now fairly mapped out and ready for the composer’s 
magic pen. His own comedy part was completed and 


OT oNEA Glee UES 161 


the rest he had roughly noted down—something like this: 

“Have the leading soprano play the Queen of Night— 
black tulle and spangles, you know.” This moon-lady 
part appealed to Mozart. Her music should be a perfect 
star-dust of staccatos and high notes; he would outdo 
Webers “Titania.” 

Schickaneder’s plot-synopsis further stated that the 
Queen of Night should have a beautiful daughter who 
is stolen from her mother by a mighty magician who 
keeps the girl guarded in his castle. Then a prince, the 
hero, rescues her. 

Just as Herr Schickaneder had achieved this noble 
climax to his plot there arose, in Vienna, a great hubbub 
over Freemasonry. Maria Theresa had issued an edict 
abolishing the Order, whereupon its followers, suddenly 
banned, became legion. Now there was only one thing 
in the world that Herr Schickaneder desired more than > 
prominence for himself on the stage—and that was 
prosperity for himself in the box-office. It occurred to 
him that quotations and ideas culled from Freemasonry, 
but intelligible only to the initiate, might draw all of the 
proscribed to the performances. (The idea of leaving 
the opera’s drawing power somewhat to the music of 
Mozart, seems never to have occurred to him.) But 
this Freemason decoy scheme appealed to him mightily 
and so stirred him to action that he flourished his pen 
like a juggler’s wand and evoked a startling transforma- 
tion to his plot. The evil magician he changed to a 
benign Priest of Wisdom, a regular Zoroaster, who steals 
the Queen’s daughter to protect her—from her mother! 
The star-spangled lady—no longer aglow with maternal 
_ instincts—is metamorphosed into a Spirit of Evil. The 


162 OPER ARAN D tS Ses 


great point achieved by this arrangement is Sarastro, the 
High Priest, a character properly fitted to sing forth 
vast quantities of noble lore and precepts culled from the 
proscribed cult. 

Having devised this much of a muddle, Herr Schicka- 
neder considered himself entitled to a place on the front 
page as librettist. After attending to this little matter 
he applied to Herr Giesecke to do the hack-work of 
making singable rhymes and supplying the Freemason 
stuff. How many other scribes Herr Giesecke himself 
summoned for help is not stated; possibly Herr Schacht- 
ner—another gentleman of sibilant name—lent assistance. 
He was one of Mozart’s earlier collaborators. 

But we must not be too hard on these gentlemen. The 
writing of a libretto, even without the involvement of 
Church and State, was no easy matter. The gifted Da 
Ponte who worded and rimed Mozart’s ‘““Don Giovanni,” 
has wittily described, in one of his letters, some of the 
trying exactions of the task. Hesays: “For good or ill 
I managed at last to finish almost the entire first act. 
There remained yet the Finale. In this Finale it is the 
dogma of theatrical theology that all the singers should 
appear on the stage even tho there were three hundred 
of them—by ones, by twos, by threes, by sixes, by tens, 
by sixtys—to sing solos, duets, trios, sextets, septets; 
and if the plot of the play does not allow of it the poet 
must find some way of making the plot allow of it, in 
defiance of his better judgment, of his reason, or of all 
the Aristotles on earth. And if he then finds his play 
going badly, so much the worse for him.” 

When “The Magic Flute” libretto was finally scissored 
into shape and pasted together, it was handed over to 
one who needed no advice or suggestions for his part of 


PUTER MAGIC We LUTE: 163 


the work. To write music around the words and then, 
as a little afterthought, to clap on an overture seems to 
have been a slight task compared to the brewing of the 
book. 

The overture is always written last because it reflects 
or presages the themes and mood of the opera, and even 
a Mozart can not know beforehand what his themes and 
rhythms will be. So “The Magic Flute’ overture was 
written just two days before the opening performance. 
_ But listen carefully to that overture. You will learn 
from it what genius can do with the slightest material. 
There are in it just two themes: very obvious, simple and 
ingratiating, innocent little themes. Mozart applies to 
these the most conventional and approved chord progres- 
sions and yet—the things he does to those themes! The 
principal one has no sooner danced forward, bright and 
daring as a laughing dryad, when his creator takes him 
in hand and leads him by means of the musicians’ mystic 
keys into every related harmonic realm, ushers him into 
the minor, pulls him out again, inverts him, upsets him, 
makes him shout, makes him creep, makes him whisper ; 
dangles him down in the bass, throws him up in the treble, 
tries him in double-thirds, in octaves, in sixths. The 
secondary theme, too, receives conspicuous attention, but 
never for a moment is that first theme allowed to stand 

still or get away. It almost finds a breathing-spell when 
the master first turns to the shy little secondary theme— 
which really has to be coaxed into prominence—but that 
panting first theme is quickly pounced upon and again 
propelled forward. Before long the two of them are 
gamboling up and down the staff—one after the other, 
and sometimes together—until at the final chord, they 
are in perfect attune and ready to live happy ever after, 


164 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


as are Pamina and Tamino at the end of the opera— 
when their terrible trials are over. 

The “terrible trials’ of Tamino begin at once as the 
curtain rises upon a woodland scene. The hero enters 
breathlessly and unarmed, pursued by a huge serpent; a 
fire-spitting dragon. The young prince, while hunting 
in this magic forest, has lost his way, his retinue, and his 
sword. He is exhausted by his long flight and fright. 
To an accompaniment of hisses and steam from the 
serpent—and palpitating music from the orchestra—the 
hero falls down crying for help. He sings music which 
tho adhering to the simplest harmonies, could not better 
express fear were all the mad progressions of Stravinsky 
and meandering scales of Debussy thrown in. Such is 
the witchery of Mozart. To achieve an effect for which 
modern composers require a labyrinth of discords and 
squirming accidentals, Mozart finds material enough in 
the orderly paths of harmony laid out by his musical 
forebears. 

Tamino, finally collapsing in a swoon, is rescued by 
three veiled ladies. These mysterious dames, always 
dressed in black, have each one a monumental name— 
but as they always appear together and sing together, 
we may as well dispose of them always collectively as the 
Three Ladies. Vamps or vixens would more accurately 
describe them, but “Ladies” they must be called because 
they are ladies-in-waiting to the Queen of the Night 
whose somber castle is close by in the magic forest; its 
grim high walls can be seen by the audience. The Three 
Ladies rescue Tamino by the simple process of gracefully 
flinging their silver javelins at the flame-spitting monster, 
and thereby killing him. Then they look at Tamino, pity 
him, admire him, decide to apprize the Queen of his 


olive GIG Or Lies 165 


advent at her door, quarrel among themselves as to which 
ones shall go and which one remain with the handsome 
youth, and finally all go out together. 

A meager enough scene in point of action; but don’t 
imagine that because the Three Ladies are not the 
nucleus of the opera and not often on the stage—don’t 
imagine their roles unimportant. There are no less than 
fifteen solo parts in this opera, and not one of them 
has Mozart left unimportant. Tho designated on the 
program dimly as an Armed Man or A Boy or a 
Genie, every mother’s son and God-given voice among 
them has music to interpret that is prominent, indispens- 
able and glorious. This very first trio of the dubious 
ladies is twelve pages long, of attic uprightness—or 
downrightness—in point of simplicity, yet splendidly 
varied and aglow with harmonic beauty. Mozart here 
evens up with Herr Schickaneder—first fling. Mozart 
longed to write a serious opera; his very soul pined for 
the heroic. Schickaneder’s insistence on a comedy role 
did heavy damage to this dream, but he was too greatly 
in need of money to oppose the manager who paid 
promptly. So the light arias were furnished as con- 
tracted for; but you may rest assured that Mozart fully 
intended—and succeeded in—overshadowing them with 
an abundance of music that was not light. ! 

Tamino, left alone, recovers consciousness and is 
- startled at the sight of the dead serpent. He realizes he 
is saved but knows not who speared the thing, with those 
three diminutive javelins. He is presently diverted by 
sounds of an approaching piper. Herr Schickaneder now 
holds the footlights. He enters as Papageno, garbed in 
a costume distinctly resembling a man tarred and feath- 
‘ered. His appearance is explained in his opening aria; 


166 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


he is a bird-catcher and dresses to deceive his victims. 
He would like to catch pretty girls as well, but failing in 
this The words of his aria proceed along the usual 
lines of comic opera inanities, but not so the music; there 
is nothing of the commonplace about this. For bubbling, 
rollicking, refined fun there never was before or since 
such an outpour of pure music—music undefiled. Here 
again Mozart overtops his manager, for try as he will to 
divert the audience by gestures and grimaces, dancing 
and piping, the hapless Herr Schickaneder never in this 
world can make his hearers cease to notice the merry 
tune and tinkle of that music. 

But this aria once finished, Mozart, the Immortal, 
must bow to the laws that be and make way for medi- 
ocrity. There is one phase of light opera he can not 
eliminate. The conductor’s baton is laid down while 
Tamino and Papageno speak in dialog. The music rests 
while the manager-actor is given a chance to utter comic 
lines, to register cowardice upon seeing the serpent, 
then—on discovering it is dead—to play the braggart 
and claim that he killed it while Tamino was unconscious. 
It is safe to say there would have been none of this 
abomination of spoken dialog in the opera were it not for 
the insistent role of Papageno. Mozart was thoroughly 
capable of writing musical recitative that would ade- 
quately express any words of worth-while emotion. But 
Papageno’s twaddle—about as dramatic as ordinary talk 
at a breakfast-table—was never meant for music; it was 
meant for exactly what Schickaneder wrote it for—to 
give himself abundant chance to play the clown. 

We read in E, J. Dent’s admirable book on Mozart 
that “the life he had been leading with Schickaneder now 
began to tell on his constitution.” Mozart’s intense loath- 





UTE MAGIG@ A REU Pi 167 


ing of the spoken word in this his magnus opus, may 
well have accelerated his untimely death. Again quoting 
from Dent: “He fully recognized that the interruption 
by spoken dialog of the continuous flow of the musical 
sound, is almost always disastrous... .”’ 

So pity with all your heart the mighty Mozart who, 
while striving to build an immortal dome, was forced to 
include in the structure a tawdry side-show stage to allow 
for some vaudeville chatter. Banjo-twanging during a 
requiem mass could hardly be more incongruous. And 
yet so great was Mozart’s genius that he conquered quand 
méme; a greater example of overcoming I can not for 
the moment recall. 

Hark back with me now to our story—to the hero 
Tamino and that bragging turkey-cock Papageno. The 
veiled Three Ladies, making a timely reentrance, chance 
to overhear the “Birdman’s” claim to valor in the matter 
of vanquishing that serpent with those frail javelins. 
One of the Ladies promptly. clamps a huge padlock on 
Papageno’s lips as a punishment for lying, while another 
one hands Tamino a medallion picture of the Queen’s 
stolen daughter. This is done that he may become enam- 
ored of the hapless maid and proceed at once to steal her 
back again from the Queen’s arch-enemy Sarastro, The 
Queen herself, on learning of the handsome stranger’s 
presence near her castle, has devised this maneuver and 
sent the medallion to him. Having imparted to us by 
prosaic speech thus much of the complex plot, the Ladies 
again fade from view—and Mozart is again permitted 
to make music. 

With thoughts very probably and humanly in a tur- 
moil of hate at mere sight of the preceding pages of 
~ dialog, he forthwith composes a love-song. Good dis- 


168 OPERAVAND SHS) SRARS 


cipline this might be for any of us. Apparently with 
Mozart the harder he hates the better he loves. Tamino’s 
rhapsody over the picture is a simple-looking song (all 
of Mozart looks simple), but woe to the unwary singer 
who approaches Mozart unprepared; the swaying wand 
of this gentle-seeming magician soon involves you ina 
maze—trips you up with unexpected intricacies of 
rhythm. Only a thorough all-round musician may ever 
venture to play his own accompaniment while singing a 
Mozart aria, for Mozart never stooped to the street-song 
device of a tune on top and something below to hold it up. 

As for this song of Tamuino’s, tho the audience under- 
stand not a word of it, they would know from the music 
alone that the man is in love. An added acquaintance 
with the libretto would apprize them that this fire of love 
suddenly enflamed by one glance at Pamuna’s picture was 
“destined to endure forever.” 

Papageno—true to the dictates of Grand Opera—has 
remained in the background throughout this tenor. solo, 
assiduously pretending not to hear it. At its conclusion 
he comes forward as do also the Three Ladies who, it 
seems, had not “faded” very far. In plain spoken words 
they tell Tamino of Pamina’s abduction by an “evil 
wizard” and they further inform him that the hero who 
rescues her shall be given her hand in marriage. 

Enough said! Tamuino is for going at once: “I fly to 
save her—my Life! my Love!’—with which exclama- 
tion he most likely would “fly” con amore—not neces- 
sarily on wings, but into the wings—did he not suddenly 
hear impressive music. This is promptly explained—very 
concisely and minutely explained—no loophole is left for 
the remotest possibility of our misunderstanding the | 
occasioning cause of this music. 


PEE IVCA GILG ot Di Ee 169 


“Tt is the harmony preceding the Queen!” 

“She is coming!” 

“See—here she is!” 

Biteisishie |” 

The libretto then says: “Thunder” and: “Enter the 
Queen.” 

Surely dialog and directions could not do more; yet 
in spite of this we find ourselves wholly unprepared for 
the amazing splendor of the ensuing scene when ade- 
quately presented. The stage is darkened, a back-drop 
slowly parts and we see in a glowing firmament a radiant 
figure poised in the curve of a silver moon. It is Astra- 
fiamente, Queen of Night; a vision of commanding 
glory, star-decked and crowned, and robed in a cloud of 
maine atille. )) Lhere.is:a\hush of silence. ;The spell 
of the picture enthralls, then slowly by means of stage- 
mechanism, which works without a hitch at the Metro- 
politan, the Night Queen floats down and forward— 
from starry firmament to firma terra. 

But wait till you hear her sing! If you had doubts 
before, you will doubt no longer that for the moment 
heaven has come to earth—so far as sight and sound are 
concerned. No second-rate soprano ever attempts the 
role of Astrafiamente. Her star-gleaming robe symbolizes 
her attainments. Only stars of the first magnitude may 
presume to play the part of this Nocturnal Queen. 

Her words are banal as the rest of the libretto—untrue 
to her character in point of fact, for this aria—music 
and all—was written before her creator decided to make 
her a bad, vicious, malign, sorceress! Her malevolence 
must be harped upon continually or we might easily for- 
get it. She seems to have a normal, motherly hankering 


170 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


to get back her daughter whom Sarastro has stolen; we 
can’t much blame the outwitted Queen for being a bit 
spiteful about it. In her first aria and recitative, this 
claire-de-lune lady is all that a lady should be—and more. 
She tells how her child was torn from her arms—and her 
soul since then is wasting with grief. This part of the 
aria is andante; both music and words are weighted with 
sorrow. But we must not forget for a moment that Herr 
Schickaneder wishes us to understand that this heart- 
wrung mother does not mean it at all. She seeks to 
recapture Pamina for the sole purpose of getting even 
with old Sarastro. Other infatuated youths, like Tamuino, 
we presume she has sent on this same errand, and prom- 
ised the same reward. The latter half of her aria is all 
“allegro”’ and dazzling with the promise of Pamina as a 
bride. The mere wizardry of her music is magic enough 
to inspire great deeds of daring. She flashes upon 
Tamino a shimmering maze of scales, staccatos and high 
notes. The stage-manager has brought her down from 
high regions, but the composer certainly carries her up 
again. High C is a mere starting-point—a sort of 
cradle to rock in. D-flat is a look upward; D-natural 
is a bit lofty, and &-flat is a good halting-place—a region 
long sacred to the real aristocrats of sopranodom. It 
was by the achievement of this pinnacle—full-throated 
and sustained—that Tetrazzini became famous over 
night. The next step, E-natural, is the rim of the world. 
Breathe deeply now, and give pause. Comes a leap into 
space—then behold—High F! An altitude this that 
none but Mozart dared to dream of demanding. But he 
insisted. His Magic Queen must prove her unearthiness 
by her singing. 

You see, there are several reasons why one does not 


“THE MAGIC FLUTE” 171 


often have a chance to hear this opera: The Queen of 
Night is one of them. 

After this spell-binding necromancy of high notes, 
Astrafiamente returns to her stars and crescent moon; 
the drop curtains of the night close together, and Tamino 
and Papageno are again alone. 

Time for another fun-song the alert Schickaneder 
decides—tho his prancing Papageno, capering about with 
padlocked lips, can do nothing now but hum. But this — 
he does loudly and thereby participates grotesquely and 
effectively in a duet with Tamino. He bewails his plight 
and gesticulates frantically, maddened by the futile hum 
his sealed lips emit. A droll enough situation but only 
worth while because of the clean, bright, captivating 
music it has called forth from the hard-driven composer. 
Tho himself at the portals of death, hounded by debts 
and countless worries, Mozart still could laugh when 
required to. For humor in music no composer of light 
opera can do better than to study with humble reverence 
the abounding merriment of Mozart. 

This humming duet is broken into, or added unto, by 
the ubiquitous Three Ladies who again enter with further 
instructions from the Queen. ‘They pause first to unloose 
the padlock from Papageno’s mouth and to turn the duet 
into a quintette about the awfulness of lying; it becomes 
quite a preachment not only to Papageno, who promises 
“never again,” but to the whole world: “Let all refrain 
from falsehood.” 

This moralizing disposed of, one of the ladies presents 
Tamino with a gift from the Queen to take upon his 
- journey—The Magic Flute. He is told it will protect 
him and “guide him safe in danger’s hour.” They all 


172 OPERA IN ID elo Srv. 


sing together on this theme and a sequence of flute-tones 
plays over the orchestra. 

That mention of “danger’s hour’ suddenly decides 
Papageno to say “good evening” and depart. But the 
ladies inform him firmly that the Queen requires him 
to accompany Tamino on his venture to Sarastro’s castle. 
Another chance for comic contortions, shivers and ter- 
rors, on the part of Papageno. But a vivid remembrance 
of the padlock so easily clapped upon him by these same 
ladies induces him promptly to obey them. They mollify 
his terror with a gift of magic bells which like the Magic 
Flute will exert a charm when played upon. 

By way of further cheer the travelers are informed 
that three ““Winged Boys’’—mysterious beings—will fol- 
low them on their way, to guide and counsel when in 
trouble. All this is brightly sung above an answering 
orchestra, and finally the whole group join in the time- 
honored, regulation Grand-Opera code—singing again 
and again, through several pages the reiterated words: 

“Farewell, till we meet again!’ 

Since the exit of the Queen, Mozart has set to music 
a constant change of theme and mood and action through- 
out two and twenty pages—without a moment’s pause or 
any dominating solo. The words are of such varying 
weight and import, we might think he must needs fall 
back upon recitative to make them clear. But not so. 
He finds a new theme and rhythm for every thought as 
it comes along, and yet the entire swing of those twenty- 
two pages is well-rounded and complete; just a happy, 
easy flow of music, ever-changing like a mountain-stream, 
yet always keeping to its course. Never—never do you 
find Mozart nodding or running short of melodies, fresh- 
plucked and dew-sparkling. 


“THE MAGIC FLUTE” 173 


The scene now changes to a room in Sarastro’s Egyp- 
tian Temple, where we see how Pamuna fares in the abode 
where, according to her mother, “A tyrant force has 
placed her.” In point of fact she dwells in sumptuous 
halls, and is attended by devoted slaves. She might be 
perfectly happy were it not that she misses her mother. 
(She does not know, it seems, that Schickaneder at the 
last minute decided to change her mother from a doting 
parent to an evil genius.) Pamina needs her mother 
chiefly to protect her from the persistent attentions of 
one of the slaves—the leader of the group. He is alto- 
gether too devoted; he is a huge black horror to Pamina. 
His name is Monostatos. She is fleeing from him as the 
scene opens, is so terrified that she falls ina swoon. Just 
then Papageno enters. | 

Heaven and the librettist alone know how he got here, 
inside the Temple, and separated from Tamino. But 
here he is, wandering like a Cook’s tourist through the 
Egyptian architecture, until suddenly he sees the hapless 
maid and the black monster. Papageno is scared to a 
shiver at sight of him, while Monostatos, equally af- 
frighted, quakes and trembles—almost turns brown—at 
the vision of this befeathered biped. They both edge 
away—look back—grunt in terror—think they each have 
seen the devil—and finally rush off-stage in opposite 
directions. All of which the music deliciously portrays. 
And how few the notes, and simple the harmony! Mozart 
discovered early that in rhythm and in tempo is charac- 
ter’s hidden self most revealed. 

Papageno, soon conquering his fear, returns just as 
Pamina recovers consciousness. Spoken dialog also 
returns. (Papageno and the spoken word are almost 
synonymous.) It occurs to him that this may possibly 


174 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


be the imprisoned daughter of the Queen of Night. He 
compares her features with those of the medallion- 
picture (which Tamino, it seems, has handed over to 
him—a most unloverlike proceeding). This gives him 
a chance to be funny over the fact that, tho all else agrees, 
she has legs and arms while the picture has none. When 
assured by Pamina that she actually is the stolen child of 
Astrafiamente, Papageno proceeds to tell of the infatuated 
Prince who is seeking to rescue her. Pamuna, of course, 
on hearing this is as eager to “fly” as Tamino was when 
first he saw her picture. Papageno, too, urges immediate 
flight. But before they go they pause to sing a duet. 
Maybe in real life we would not do this, but magic love 
and magic music might inspire us to anything. There 
is certainly right here the very magic of music—no one 
ever denies this. Had Mozart done no other good deed 
in all his life this one divine duet must have sufficed to 
passport him into Heaven. It is a eulogy of love; the 
kind of love that God tells us He is. In the heart of 
Mozart there was something both God-like and child- 
like, or never could he have given to his devouring 
enemy—the gibbering, befeathered Schickaneder—a 
participation in this serene song; clear-shining and bene- 
ficent as the morning star. If you never have heard 
“Dove Prende,”’ hie you at once to the nearest music- 
store, buy you a record—and then in solitude—on your 
knees it might well be—listen to this song, which the 
angels in Heaven, I am sure, never tire of tho all the 
music of earth since Pan first piped has radioed its way 
to their ears. 

Another change of scene brings us into a sacred grove 
facing three austere temple-gates. We hear now the 
voices of the three Winged Boys, the genie who serve 


Pelee NAGTOPR EU RY 175 


as guides to Tamino, who, strayed from even the slight 
comfort of Papageno, finds himself alone in this strange 
dim setting, alone and at a loss what next to do. 

The advice Tamino hears from the Winged Boys is 
no more definite than that which we all hear in hours of 
indecision if we listen to the inner voice: “Be stedfast, 
patient, and discreet.”’ This is the sum of their counsel. 
If we regard the whole opera in its symbolic sense, the 
genii plainly betoken Silence, Patience, and Perseverance; 
the safest guides through life’s dim maze for impetuous 
Tamino to follow—he being none other than “Every- 
man.” According to Mozart these mystic voices—Silence, 
Patience, and Perseverance,—always sing together in 
gentle accord and create the sweetest harmony. 

Again alone, when the Winged Boys have left him, 
Tamino tries his best to be “stedfast, patient, and dis- 
creet” in his search for Pamina. He believes he at last 
has come to the castle of her abductor, the evil wizard, 
Sarastro. The three gates look ominous, but he ventures 
to knock at one of them. Instantly a shivering, unseen 
chorus shouts ‘“‘Arresta!” “Draw back!” ‘“Everyman’’ 
has plainly made a mistake; a situation familiar enough 
to all of us. Nothing to do now but try another door. 
Tamino does this and again hears the terrifying “Stand- 
back!’ Woe to him or to us if after two failures hope 
falters. Tamino attempts the third door. He does not 
know—we never know—to what doom or delight the 
next step may lead. This time the door is opened to 
Tamino—opened by a priestly figure of benign appear- 
ance who asks what the stranger seeks in these sacred 
halls. Tamino, rising to the occasion, replies that he is 
seeking “Honor and Virtue’—he has Pamina in mind. 
With illuminating insight the Priest responds: “How do 


176 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


you hope to find these while vengeance and murder reign 
in your heart?” 

There is high philosophy here—a touch of Freemasonry 
perhaps—surely not the pen of Schickaneder. 

Tamino protests that his thoughts of vengeance are 
justly aimed at a tyrant villain. “None such dwell here,” 
the good priest answers. He further tells Tamino that 
the great Sarastro is wise and kind; tho he stole Pamuina, 
it was not to harm but to nelp her. Yamuino doubts and 
disbelieves. He faces the blank wall we all know—the 
eternal Why. He cries out in despair: “When—Oh, 
when, shall I learn the meaning?” To this comes the 
cryptic reply: “When Heaven shall lead you to Wisdom’s 
band.” 

The Priest disappears and Tamino despairs: “O 
gloomy night—when wilt thou vanish?” 

“Soon! Soon!’ cries a hidden voice (the deep-hid 
hope in “Everyman’s” heart). The same concealed voice 
assures him that Pamuna is still alive. 

All the preceding scene is recitative—terse, vigorous, 
and expressive—the rhythmic and tonal realm well staked 
off by sparse but ample chords in the orchestra. 

With the rebirth of hope comes a rebirth of music. 
Tamino takes out his flute; he plays and sings—to the 
angels above and to all creation—hoping, praying, that 
help will come somehow, somewhere. He has high 
dreams of possible wonders to be worked by the tones 
of that magic flute; who knows but that they may topple 
down old Sarastro’s entire temple—and release Pamina 
at once! Thus extravagant is hope after a siege of dire 
despair. Indeed so beautiful is this aria of alternating 
flute and song it might of itself arouse faith in the Sphinx 
or a prayer to the Pyramids, 





© UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD. 


” 





SEMBRICH AS “PAMINA” IN “THe MAcic FLUTE” 





ei NEAT OOP UR 177 


What actually does happen is far from supernatural; 
it is prosaic and simple as many a real answer to prayer. 
Tamino hears the familiar sound of Papageno’s bird- 
pipe answering his flute. It’s not much of a miracle, but 
it is a bit comforting none the less. On second thought 
Tamino surmises that Papageno has already found 
Pamina. Oh joy! He rushes off to meet them—rushes 
in exactly the wrong direction, as we all do when sense- 
less eagerness prevents us from standing still and waiting. 

Tamino has no sooner disappeared in one direction, 
when Papageno and Pamina enter from another. They 
have heard Tamino and are joyously following him while 
fearfully fleeing from Monostatos. But Tamino is upper- 
most in their thoughts. “Let us hasten to him,” they 
cry, whereupon they pause to sing about it! And because 
great Mozart wrote the music, no matter how absurd 
the action, or—rather—the pause, you say God bless 
them for it. 

Whatever you hear of Mozart, whether aria, duet, 
terzet, or ensemble, you always feel an impulse to assert 
that this particular form is after all the one that shows 
him at his best. In duets he never spurns, as they do 
to-day, that mellifluous blending of the voices in the 
simple, primeval harmony of thirds, which is God’s first 
law for duets. After a hearing of this joyful, natural 
union as achieved in the older compositions, one truly 
feels like saying: “What God hath joined together let no 
man put asunder.” In modern opera we call them duos; 
they have little or no concord or unanimity of phrase— 
the two voices maintain separate establishments through- 
out. 

While Papageno and Pamina are still “hastening on” 
with all their vocal might, Monostatos rushes upon them, 


178 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


grinning vengeance at sight of his “entrapped birds.” 
He calls his slaves to bind them. All would be lost for 
the fugitives, did not Papageno—unexpectedly quick- 
witted—bethink him of his magic bells. There may be 
deep symbolism buried here, but in this instance one 
refuses to delve—one prefers to dance: a tantalizing 
tingle of rhythm and tune has suddenly bubbled up to 
the top. Monostatos and his slaves soon find them- 
selves helpless; they are irresistibly impelled to hop up 
and down and sing a jibbering “Ja—la” in time with the 
magic bells. Under the spell of that music they might 
keep it up through the rest of the opera and not even 
the audience would tire—but an approaching chorus is 
heard. It is Sarastro himself and his pontifical train. 

Papageno as usual shudders with fear. How explain 
to the great Lord of the Temple this abduction of 
Pamina? “Tell the truth,’ admonishes Pamina, the 
ethical teaching imparted her in this home of Wisdom 
thus showing effect. 

Sarastro and his procession impressively enter, to an 
accompaniment of trumpets and song—all lauding his 
Wisdom and Beneficence. This is not an expression of 
mere lip-sevvice and practised obedience. Sarastro rep- 
resents the actual power of, high vision and deep kindli- 
ness. Pamina, knowing his gentle justice, fearlessly 
kneels before him, confessing herself a culprit in that she 
has tried to escape, but she tells him, too, of Monostatos’ 
vile attentions. 

Sarastro’s first phrase—solemn, simple, forgiving— 
would, even without words, convey all the deep import 
of tenderness, self-mastery and high purpose that Mozart 
meant to put in them. Mozart loved his Sarastro music. 


“THE MAGIC FLUTE” 179 


To him Sarastro epitomized the real grandeur of the 
Grand Opera he longed to write. 

Sarastro, the all-knowing, understands Pamina—her 
fears and struggles, her longings, the love in her heart 
for Tamino (the dream-prince she awaits as all maidens 
do) and her desire to escape the walls that enclose her. 
But Fate is immutable; neither she nor we may overstep 
the barriers that hedge us in. She must not go; Sarastro 
bids her be “stedfast.’”’ The same word this that the 
. Winged Boys gave to Tamino: a password of inverted 
meaning—stand firm, as it were, and you will get there. 

Pamina, acquiescing—humbly resigned to obedience— 
suddenly finds to her utter amaze, her dear dreams 
realized. 

Deep symbolism here—high philosophy—the splendid 
power of resignation. Giving up all hope of love, all 
further seeking for her Prince—behold he comes! And, 
bless you, it is Monostatos, the hated villain, who brings 
him to her. Enemies come handy, sometimes! Not that 
they mean to help us, but all things—even devils, it seems, 
work together eventually for good. Monostatos, fleeing 
from the scene after his painful experience of compulsory 
dancing, has run across Tamino. He suspects at once 
that this audacious wanderer in the Temple-grounds is 
the one to whom Papageno and Pamina were so voci- 
ferously “hastening.” So he hurries the culprit to 
Sarastro, expecting high reward for his vigilance. With 
a crisp new theme, all his own, in the orchestra—chipper, 
staccato, and insolent—he drags Tamino forward. 

Then behold what happens! True love—destined 
love—recognizes its own at once. Regardless of all sur- 
roundings, of even the black man’s mincing music which 
still permeates the orchestra, Tasino and Pamina rush 


180 OPERA AND TTS STARS 


to each other’s arms. They sing right over the incon- 
gruous music—right through it; they make love-music 
out of it. Love, blind and deaf, over-rides all else. The 
entire assemblage exclaim in astonishment at this scene 
of rapture enacted before them. 

Monostatos, taking possession again of his misused 
theme in the orchestra, tells Sarastro how Pamina was 
preparing to escape with this stranger whom he has 
luckily captured just in time. Sarastro cuts him short. 

“Seventy strokes on his back.” This is the order . 
given, the reward that he gets. It must have gone hard 
with Schickaneder to allow Monostatos this moment of 
“funny stuff’’—this chance to enact the foiled fool. 

Sarastro now bids the two strangers be led to the 
“Temple of Probation,’ where their love must be tested. 
Happiness is only for those who have strength to endure 
unfalteringly through the period of initiation; all of 
which merely symbols this dim precursor to Heaven— 
Teter 

A veil is thrown. over each of the probationers. We 
all go through life with clouded vision. Thus veiled 
Pamina and Tamino find that they no longer see each 
other, which means, of course, that they fail to under- 
stand each other. | 

The solemn procession, headed by Sarastro and 
Pamina, now returns to the Temple, singing vaguely but 
majestically of Justice and Virtue, of Heaven and Earth. 
The symbolism here, I imagine, consists in the combina- 
tion of doggerel words—so entirely earthly—and Mozczart- 
ian music—so touched with Heaven. 

The second act (there are only two) opens in a forest 
at night. Stringed instruments—sotto voce—accompany 
the entrance of Sarastro and the white-garbed priests. 


bie MAGTOVE LUD? I8l 


To our modern eyes the scene might be strongly sug- 
gestive of the Ku Klux Klan, did not the music so plainly 
reveal a spirit of hallowed peace and exalted purpose. A 
gracious splendor of inspired music weaves its way 
through simple harmonies, upright and archaic as the 
trees in God’s first temple. 

Sarastro’s opening aria is a prayer for the young 
novitiates. Listen well to this aria and chorus—all ye 
who have ears to hear—and remember that it first 
resounded in the mind of one who already was facing 
the final portal of his own initiation. In those sweet 
encompassing harmonies, in the tender cadence of that 
undertone reaching down, as is were, to uplift the 
fallen—tlisten with all your heart, and you will verily 
hear therein something of the pity and the tremendous 
reach—the glory and the wonder—of the love of God. 

Mozart fairly wrenched out his heart when composing 
and then—more than once—saw the throbbing thing 
tossed about in the dust. Of this particular aria he 
writes: “. . . Unluckily I was in his box as the second 
act began—the ceremonial scene. The all-knowing” 
(meaning his host) “applauded loudly but laughed at 
everything. At first, I was patient and tried to draw 
his attention to certain passages, but he insisted on laugh- 
ing at everything. That was more than I could stand. 
I called him a ‘Papageno’ and went out, but I don’t 
believe the ass understood what I meant.” 

After Sarastro’s prayer Tamino and Papageno are led 
in and solemnly questioned. Tamino, knowing well that 
he can not otherwise attain love (Pamina) promises to 
endure all tests, even at the risk of his life. 

Papageno is not so ready with promises, as he seeks 
neither wisdom nor love. All he wants—so he claims— 


182 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


is food, drink, and sleep. But he is awakened to higher 
desires when informed by the priest that there is for him 
too a destined love—her name being Papagena. ‘What! 
Pa-pa-pa!’ Funny acting again for Herr Schickaneder. 

But there is really sweet idealism and fair philosophy 
in this insistent similarity of name for the preordained 
mate of the seeker who is willing to achieve self-mastery 
and high sacrifice. Papageno, like Tamuino, at last prom- 
ises to obey—to accept even death itself—if need be. 

The first command is to speak to no woman—not even 
to the destined loved one should they meet. This com- 
mand is emphasized by a brief but impressive duet: 
“Beware of the viles of women’’—a comic-opera sort of 
title, well adapted to a jingling tune, a knowing nod, 
and a wink of the eye for emphasis. But not so when 
Mozart writes the music. This duet is sung by two 
priests: it is fugue-like and uplifting, with a sweep to 
its phrases that impressively recall that momentous hour 
still sounding through the ages when Moses read aloud 
from tablets of stone five words of similar import. 

The assemblage of priests now departs. Tamino and 
Papageno are left in darkness. High symbolism again; 
How often, after our sternest resolves, instead of light 
only a deeper gloom envelops us. Papageno frets and 
shivers at the darkness. Tamuno, the high-born, exclaims 
instead: “Endure it! Suffer, if you must, and believe it 
the will of Heaven.” 

At this moment calamity indeed comes to meet them: 
the Three Ladies enter. These come not merely to typify 
temptation—tho this phase, too, is evident as they soon 
are pleading for some reply to their words, and Tamino 
must well-nigh choke Papageno to keep him from break- 
ing his vow of silence toward women—but they are here 


6 feet VA GIG Ve 183 


chiefly to emphasize and make prominent the constant 
terror that “Everyman” in his course through life en- 
counters. ‘This eternal terror is the fear of death. The 
“Ladies of Darkness’ in dulcet harmony diabolically 
declare that the priests of this temple are unholy sorcerers 
enmeshing all who follow them—enticing them to horrors 
that lead to death. One wonders whether they know 
that in the recent duet of the priests very similar words 
of warning were used by them about women; death, too, 
was mentioned as the sure result of their enticements. 

By this conflict of warnings Man is depicted as a free 
agent. The Prince—the one of heroic mold—does not 
waver in decision; he gives no glance or reply to these 
gentle-voiced harpies of the night. Tamino has a good 
deal to say, but it is entirely directed to Papageno, in a 
desperate effort to quell his rash impulse to address the 
Ladies and believe all they say. In this quintet of divers 
intent—the Ladies singing to one purpose, the two men 
opposing even each other—we still find in the harmony 
of Mozart as in the Justice of God, that all things work 
together for good. Altho confusion occurs on the 
stage—confusion, dissension, and fear—the all-enfolding 
master-music forever evolves into harmony. The pulse- 
beat changes, but no discord protrudes—and as for crea- 
tion—there is no end to its vast variety! There is vigor, 
there are big uprising crescendos, but when turmoil 
threatens the clear-voiced peal of trombone, flute. or 
cornet comes breaking through like far-flung sunbeams, 
or the gleaming trumpet-call of angels. 

Another change of scene; another moon-lit garden. 
Pamina is again immured in the spacious enclosure of 
Sarastro’s sacred groves and Temple. She is discovered 
- gracefully sleeping upon a bank of flowers. This heroine 


184 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


certainly does need a mother—any sort of a mother 
would tell her that a moon-lit garden is no place for a 
young girl to sleep. 

Monostatos soon appears, enamored as ever and quite 
recovered from his recent punishment of “seventy 
stripes.” 

This scene, to us so glaringly symbolical of Virtue, 
all white—and Sin, all black—was really not so intended, 
being written instead in a jocular vein on a par with the 
Papageno interludes. To the Viennese—and in fact to 
all Europe—an Ethiopean suggests Ethiopia, nothing 
more; his dark skin is wholly geographical. It is looked 
upon as something exotic, tropical and indeed picturesque. 
So there was nothing repellent to Mozart’s audience in 
the buffoon aria Monostatos now sings—to the moon 
and to all creation—about his longing for a wife. But 
never mind the words. Mozart has given him a rollick- 
ing song, a capering two-step that must have made old 
Schickaneder wince, whenever he, standing dumb in the 
wings, was forced to listen to it. 

He doubtless heard both it and the ensuing applause 
very plainly, but Pamuina, close by on her bank of flowers, 
sleeps peacefully through it all. His song ended Mono- 
statos, still sounding her praises in vaudevillian soliloquy, 
steps over to her side. Even this does not wake her. It 
takes thunder to do that—and a mild earthquake—and 
the voice of Astrafiamente crying out-in true tragedian 
awfulness: “Avaunt! thou villain!’ One libretto has it: 
“Stand back!” and another, “Stop there!’’—but they all 
agree in the wording of the stage directions—no shadow 
of doubt about them: “It thunders’ and “The Queen 
rises from beneath the earth.’ This upheaval occurs 


OEE MAGIC) BE IUT By 185 


close to Pamina’s flower-bank—and probably disturbs it 
a littl—anyway, she awakes at last. 

Monostatos, on seeing the dazzling Night-Queen, runs 
to cover but stays near enough to hear all the talk that 
ensues between mother and daughter. The Queen, we 
soon learn, has not appeared at this timely moment 
merely to rescue her child; she has chosen this opportun- 
ity, it seems, for the purpose of making Pamuina so grate- 
ful and convinced of her mother’s goodness that she will 
be ready to obey her every command. 

Pamina has a strong sense of duty, but one of life’s 
hardest lessons to learn is the fact that each soul must 
discover for itself where duty lies. Pamina wishes to 
obey her mother, but what is she to do when the Queen 
hands her a dagger and bids her kill Sarastro? Some 
trumped-up reason is given the girl: Sarastro, so the 
Queen says, has not only stolen Pamina, and now sepa- 
rated her from Tamuino, but he also long ago stole from 
Pamina’s father the mighty “Symbol of Wisdom—the 
golden Shield of the Sun’’—whatever that is. Maybe 
the Masons know. But it is evidently too occult for 
elucidation, either verbal or musical; Mozart leaves it 
in the air—where the Sun belongs—and spoken dialog 
now gives way to music that makes no mention of mystic 
Shield. The Queen sings of Hate—of throbbing, “roar- 
ing,’ unquenchable hate, not only for Sarastro, but for 
Pamina, too, if she fails to kill him. ‘“Be thou then 
accursed forever!’ The blazing Astrafiamente fairly 
startles the stars with her hate; she quakes and shakes 
and staccatos with hate. It is all in the minor key, but 
fast and furious, with sizzling accents leaping forth sharp 
and snapping as crackling flames. 

When Mozart turns to the minor it is always note- 


186 OPRDRA CA NDEs 3s bavi S 


worthy. His music is by nature so bright-tinted and 
joyous that the dark-hued scales, with him, invariably 
depict dire deeds or fathomless despair. But ever and 
always for every deed—be it devilish or divine—he 
clings to harmonies that are simple, sure, and unmis- 
takable. The modern composer would whip up in the 
orchestra a swirl of discords—snarling ninths, unaffiliated 
scales and fighting sequences—to convey the idea of this 
Night Queen’s fusillade of fury; her part in the portrayal 
would probably be a series of Valkure shrieks. All this 
might be truly artistic, impressive, and a-thrill with the 
needed sense of the marvelous. But there is also a potent, 
incisive power in simplicity. Clear and clean as the 
dawn of day are the harmonies and themes of Mozart. 
But trust him unerringly to know the heart-beat, the 
rhythm, of every emotion. With reiterated notes, swift 
and determined as a clenched fist, he hammers into your 
consciousness the hellish fury of Astrafiamente’s rage. 

But tho the words and music of this aria are a very 
hornet’s nest of hate, there must be nothing “hellish” 
about the voice of the prima donna who sings it. A 
demon all divine about describes the effect her tones 
must achieve! Only a voice purified by the fire of tor- 
turing years of practise, or one plucked straight from 
the singing choirs of Heaven—only such are fitted to 
clarion forth the concentrated diablerie of this Mozartian 
mad-song. The singer must batter and buffet every note 
on the staff and above it. And right here let me pause 
to say—there is no such thing as reshaping Mozart— 
eliminating or adding unto his tonal creations to suit 
voice or fancy of the singer. His high notes are not 
decorations—mere appended ornaments, as they often 
are with Meyerbeer or Rossini; they are fixed stars in 


Al re MA GICy Rhein? 187 


the scheme of his universe. When Astrafiamente is sent 
soaring to the zenith—to the ultimate peril—the alti- 
tudinous glory of high F, and is required to rap sharply at 
this gieaming gate to the Beyond—she must obey or the 
whole firmament of Mozart's dream falls down. 

So when you meet a prima donna who has sung the 
role of the Queen of Night in “The Magic Flute’— 
sung it more than once—doff your hat if you are of this 
hemisphere, or your shoes if you are an oriental; you are 
in the presence of a Diva worthy of the name. Frieda 
Hempel has sung this role, so too has Marcella Sembrich. 

Pamina, mute and amazed, looks at the dagger—then 
at her mother—and hears with freezing horror the com- 
mand, and the impending curse if she disobeys. All 
the stars from on high seem falling upon her as the 
tornado of tones is flung from her mother’s lips. 

The Queen disappears as she came—descends into the 
earth—in a cloud of black tulle and a trap-door. Pamina 
is left still gazing at the dagger, wondering helplessly 
what next to do—and knowing well that she can never 
think of attempting to kill Sarastro, even tho he were all- 
evil as her mother would have her believe. Poor Pamina, 
again alone, is again accosted by Monostatos. He has 
heard all, and offers to help her. She shrinks from his 
mere approach, but still more is she terrified at thought 
of her mother’s anger. How live at all under that awful | 
curse from the one she has always loved and yearned 
for. But to obey the command—to use that dagger as 
directed—impossible! One wonders that, just by way of 
practise, she does not start to using it on Monostatos. 
He offers again to help her obey the Night-Queen’s com- 
mand ; presumably he means to do the daggering himself. 
Sarastro will then be eliminated and she will still have 


188 OPERAVANDITS) SLRS 


her mother’s love—all this if only she will cease to spurn 
him. Pamina promptly answers “No.” By this we see 
that self-determination is beginning to sprout forth in 
her heretofore fallow complex. 

This whole interview is in dialog; daggers, black men, 
and development of character, all at once, are too pon- 
derous a combination to convey clearly in music. Don’t 
blame Mozart; he didn’t make the libretto! But Schicka- 
neder did—or claimed he did—and he died insane—an 
established fact, this, which no one wonders at. 

To return to Pamina: The Black-a-moor is so incensed 
at her reply that he threatens to kill her. Pamuina is on 
her knees pleading for her life when suddenly Sarastro 
enters. He, like the Queen, says “Stop there!’ Monosta- 
tos whines excuses, and claims that the girl and her 
mother were plotting to kill the High Priest. Sarastro 
bids him go at once, and never show himself on these 
grounds again. Monostatos slinks away muttering ven- 
geance and determined now to join with the Queen. 

Since Sarastro has been told of her mother’s scheming, 
Pamina expects him to tear the air with words of revenge 
in accents similar to those she has lately been hearing, 
especially when Savastro assures her that it was not his 
will, but Heaven’s high behest, that took her from her 
mother. He sees the dagger still unsheathed and knows 
that Astrafiamente even now is marshaling her forces 
for war against him. But does he sing of revenge and 
hate? Not he. Within this sacred realm—so goes his 
song—‘‘no thought et blighting vengeance lowers. Soft 
pity heals each woe.’ 

The lesson of forgiveness is taught Pamina by stank 
and music that are soothing, sweet and holy. Sarastro 
speaks of Tamino and hopes that he will come, tri- 


“THE MAGIC FLUTE” 189 


umphant, through the trials he must endure. When 
Pamina then is married to her Prince and happy, he— 
Sarastro—will be “avenged enough.” 

“In other’s joy we here find peace.” Great is the lesson 
Pamina thus learns. It matters not whether she grasps 
the meaning of the words, for Sarastro’s music—the 
harmony of it—enwraps the soul with a sense of love 
and peace so sure and enduring that one feels upheld, 
uplifted and lulled to rest in the safe enfoldment of the 
Everlasting Arms. 

Another change of scene. In the modern productions 
of the opera these numerous stage transformations are 
not always adhered to. Schickaneder was relying upon 
his scenic effects and his own comedy for the financial 
success of the work; we now know that Mozart’s music, 
ably interpreted, will insure success sans scenery and 
in spite of comic caperings that suggest a circus tent. 

According to the original plan we now behold a hall 
in the Temple where we follow the hero and the fool 
Papageno in their encounter with life’s lessons and temp- 
tations. Their guardian angels—the Three Genii, the 
“Winged Boys,” the disguised sopranos—or whatever 
you choose to call them, are always nearby with counsel 
and help; a big esoteric idea, this, but baldly presented 
by all concerned, save Mozart. Their garb and wings 
and words all border on the ridiculous. But never mind: 
the music, the interweaving of these three clear voices in 
limpid harmony, supported by flute and strings, is aerial 
and fanciful as gossamer. The flute flits about with 
fragmentary trills—a will-o’-the-wisp effect that adds 
sparkle to the ethereal delicacy of this precious puff-ball 
of a trio flung heavenward—and kept there. 

As for the words, they are about as poetic as stove-lids 


190 OPERA VAN DESO SiaAks 


and stone. ‘‘We return the flute we took from you’— 
this to Tamino (our first intimation that the magic gift 
was ever taken away). And to Papageno: “Here again 
are your bells.” (Also news to us.) “Behold a table 
spread.” (Table, well-equipped with food suddenly 
appears.) “Eat you—and drink!” 

Even Mozart must have fallen down under this deadly 
dump of commonplace words were there not here inserted 
a wee touch of beneficent uplift. 

“Food and drink give power to achieve. Have faith, 
Tamino, thy goal is near—and you, Papageno, forget 
not silence.” 

The Genii disappear and, Papageno being present, 
there follows the inevitable interlude of by-play and 
spoken word. Tamino plays on his recovered flute, but — 
Papageno, preferring to “play on his teeth,” sits down at 
the table exulting volubly over the fine food. In the 
meantime Tamino’s casual flute-tones (casual to him but 
in point of fact all written down in the book of Fate, 
as our most trivial acts often prove to be)—these stray- 
ing tones reach the ear of Pamina, who presently rushes 
onto the scene overjoyed at finding her Prince, her 
destined love—her “‘heart’s adored.” 

And now things happen: a situation old as Orpheus, 
eternal as love—misunderstanding, silence unexplained, 
pleading unheeded. Tamino, mindful of his vow, speaks 
no word to Pamina in spite of her entreaties—her despair 
at his coldness. With feminine logic, based solely on the 
nimble knack of jumping to conclusions—any sort of a 
conclusion—she decides that he does not love her. 
Tamino with the usual masculine density in such mat- 
ters—his mind wholly absorbed in the fact or duty he is 
confronting, and therefore incapable of realizing the 


“THE MAGIC FLUTE” 191 


depths of her suffering—does nothing to mitigate it. 
The merest sign, or hand-clasp, or assuring glance of his 
eye, would have satisfied her longing. But no—he makes 
no response. This, too, like his random flute-tune, is 
all written down in the Book. Fate stings all lovers with 
this whip-lash of misunderstanding. 

This is the test that comes heaviest on Pamina; it is 
even harder to bear than the first one, which shattered 
her preconceived sense of duty to her mother. Tamuno, 
on the other hand, is not nearly so distressed; he is 
sustained by the comforting knowledge that in due time, 
when the ban is lifted, he will return to Pamina and 
explain his silence. His first test—the ignoring of the 
Veiled Ladies—was the really severe test for him! 

It seems a pity that Pamina must suffer so deeply, but 
art is art; the broken heart and crushed flower are the 
very bulwark and battlements of poetry and music. Right 
now Pamina sings her sweetest song—her only solo. 
But there is in it no mounting climax of high notes; it 
is the music of tears, of bated breath and broken phrases, 
of sudden outbursts that quickly droop. Its closing 
cadence circles slowly downward like a wounded bird. 
The spirit of song flies low when love has left. Pamuna, 
seeing naught before her but “eternal gloom and the 
gaping tomb,” goes out alone as her song dies down. 

Now attention please to Papageno, who all this time 
has been nobly self-effacing; has remained unheard tho 
not unseen. He is still eating at the table. Without that 
table he must needs have been off-stage during the pre- 
ceding scene—hence the table. It also enables him to 
make merry with his mouth full, and to play the gour- 
mand—loth to leave—when Tamuno, hearing the trum- 
pets of the temple calling, hurries off and bids Papageno 


192 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


come along. But he just can not do it; he runs back for 
another drink and finally declares that even tho Sarastro 
send lions to devour him, he will not leave that table. 
Whereupon a lion does appear, and other beasts, too. 
Schickaneder hereby has a chance to play the coward 
to his heart’s content—until Tamino, hearing his cries, 
returns and by a few notes from his magic flute causes 
the papier-maché menagerie to retreat. 

The scene-shifters now again make busy, and disclose 
a subterranean region, where the priests again assemble 
bearing on their shoulders an illuminated Pyramid; this 
mystic paraphernalia being of no importance whatever 
unless it be to typify the character of the song they sing. 
It is an ode to Osiris, with harmonies monumental in 
simplicity; their rigidity of line and directness of pur- 
pose clean-cut as an Egyptian carving. 

Tamino is brought forward, veiled and unseeing. 
Sarastro assures him that the goal is near altho two more 
trials await him. Pamina, also veiled, now enters slowly, 
still despairing. One moment of grace is allowed her. 
The veils are removed and the lovers are allowed to 
address each other—but only to say good-by. Tamino 
man-like, maintains an iron fortitude in the face of emo- 
tion; he holds his thought steadily to the trial ahead. To 
Pamina the present moment is the ultimate trial, for she 
thinks if his love were as hers he surely would be less 
stoical at this terrible parting. Thus Fate decrees that 
“Everyman” and “Everywoman’ must, throughout life’s 
course—the great Initiation—misunderstand each other. 

In Masonry the initiation ceremony symbolizes the 
overcoming of the fear of death; hence the symbolism of 
this opera. Tamino must endure the test—face death 
itself, unshrinkingly—ere peace and love are his. By 


“THE MAGIC FLUTE” 193 


the aid of fortitude he succeeds—but Pamuina needs no 
other aid than love; with love assured she knows and 
sees nothing else—not even death itself. He learns this 
later—this working force in a woman’s heart. 

The trio now sung, bespeaking the variant emotions of 
the lovers, and the sustaining counsel of Sarastro, is the 
most human music in the opera. There is nothing super- 
natural, grotesque, symbolical or solemn about it. It is 
just straight, lovely, pure, heart-moving music. Even 
when the old time-worn Italian opera device of ridicu- 
lous reiteration hisses at us in the words “Haste, haste, 
‘we must away—let us not delay!” 
us exactly fourteen times does not divert from the ingra- 
tiating charm of Mozcart. 


—even this thrown at 


By way of information it may be mentioned that this 
trio is, according to technical phraseology, in the rondo 
form, and a rondo, according to wntechnical phraseology, 
is—by way of bald example—best known and best shown 
in that admirable nursery ditty—‘“Three Blind Mice.” 

Papageno has been off-stage for some moments; we 
last saw him fleeing from the lions and hastening after 
Tamino. He has remained out of sight throughout one 
chorus, one dialog, and a trio. This is the utmost one 
could ask or hope for from an acting-manager who is 
also owner of the theater, producer and librettist. He 
now rushes in, panting and pretending, with the best of 
his art, that he still is following Tamino—has had a 
terrible time keeping up with him. He now finds the 
stage empty, for Tamino and Pamina have just been led 
away by the Priests with Sarastro at their head—(also 
the pyramid and torches). 

One of the priests, designated as the Orator, returns, 


194 OPER RAVAN Ditih Sisk s 


having heard Papageno’s fool chatter about seeking 
Tamino. 

“Why did you leave him?’ the priest asks, and he 
soon announces that Papageno is beyond hope and can 
never attain to celestial bliss; a wise decree, as we plainly 
see that Papageno has no yearning at all for celestial 
bliss. All he asks for is wine. “Have you no higher 
wish?” “None at present,” he replies. The Orator sum- 
mons with his wand a brimming wine-glass, determined 
apparently to fill the fool according to his folly. Papa- 
geno is left alone to tipple as he will. He drinks from 
the non-emptying cup noisily, joyously, lengthily and 
verbosely. The wine touches his heart; he soon finds 
himself longing for love—a companion through life. He 
weeps at the thought of his loneliness; will no one take 
pity upon him? 

Mozart takes pity to the extent of giving him a good- 
sized aria for the expression of these longings—an aria 
with the magic bells for accompaniment and the tune 
and rhythm so uninvolved, so clearly pronounced they 
would rivet the attention of a pouting baby. 

Fven fools, it seems, if they sing when in sorrow, 
mingle harmony with their troubles—even fools may 
move the all-seeing Fates to give them another chance— 
another test of character. 

An old hag suddenly rises before Papageno. She says 
she has come in answer to his prayers; she will be his 
loved one. She bids him take her hand. Papageno is 
too astonished and frightened to disobey. At once she 
is transformed into a comely girl—his destined bride— 
Papagena. He is now too astonished and delighted to 
remember to obey the earlier command to speak to no 
woman! He calls out her name and rushes to her— 


MUTE MAGIC; FEU Ey 195 


whereupon she sinks out of sight. Papageno thus again 
left alone is amazed into silence—almost awakened to 
thoughtfulness. 

Comes another change of scene; another spot in the 
garden. 

We see again the three Genii. 

The three boy-voices or sopranos sing soft-winged 
music whose rhythmic form is clear, correct, austere, yet 
somehow elusive in spite of its simplicity. They sing 
of the coming dawn. It is a hymn to the God of Day, a 
gentle pzan of joy because Tamino soon will emerge 
from the darkness of his trials. The harmony of this 
music is direct and clear as radiating sunbeams, yet 
something about those firm-set, untroubled triads main- 
taining their accurate way, in union with—yet wholly 
apart from—the orchestra, something aloof about them 
suggests incalculable depths and heights of meaning; you 
find yourself dimly dreaming of the fourth dimension 
and the farthest star. 

But presently a change comes over the strange placid- 
ity of their song, a flutter of agitation—very faint—and 
a sequence of broken phrases. These herald the approach 
of Pamina, for the Genii know she is bowed in grief— 
that her reason totters. She enters, a distraught Ophelia, 
her mother’s dagger in her hand. She apostrophizes the 
weapon as her only friend, since mother and lover both 
have failed her. : 

She does not see the guardian Genii—but she hears 
them as we, too, hear the inner voice when it strives to 
caution us. Let us not forget that Silence, Patience, 
Perseverance, are the symbolic names of these three 
Genii. They speak to Pamina now as she raises the 
dagger to her own breast. Such a crime, they warn her, 


196 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


is abhorred of Heaven. But she believes her mother’s 
curse rests upon her—what has she to hope from Heaven? 
Again she lifts the dagger. This time they restrain her 
by the thought that perhaps after all Tamino loves her. 
But why was he so coldly silent, why did he turn his face 
away? This they can not answer; she must learn for 
herself the ways of love. But they can lead her to him, 
so she decides to follow these three safe guides. 

The action of this scene allows for big music—the 
riven heart at the point of despair is Grand Opera indeed ; 
here the composer has what he longed for. There is real 
drama in the music now—the very breath of tragedy— 
but it is all too brief. 

Herr Schickaneder-Papageno is off-stage for sometime 
in this portion of the second act, and the reason is clear; 
he is very, very busy fixing the scenery. No ordinary 
stage-hands, however numerous, could be relied upon for 
the next setting; only one strongly driven by financial 
interest would give to it the needed care, and make sure 
that every detail was in working order. A truly moun- 
tainous task is the achievement of this next stage-picture. 
The directions unequivocally demand, not merely a 
mountain, but a “tremendous mountain.” And this 
tremendous structure of paper and paint must have at its 
base a huge cavern with a “grilled” iron gate that the 
audience can see through; this point is very important, 
because what we see through the “grilled” gate is a 
“sea of leaping flames!’ Old Papa Papageno, busy fath- 
ering this opera, certainly had no time to be in front 
while this setting was being set. It all has to be done 
while Pamina and the Boys are singing, for there are 
only two acts in the whole opera, and most of the dif- 
ferent scenes are adjusted back of a brief drop-curtain. 


“THE MAGIC FLUTE” 197 


Let us assume that all is done well and that we do 
actually behold an impressive mountain with a sea of 
fire at its base behind a hot, grilled gate. I forgot to 
mention that this setting also includes a Pyramid bear- 
ing some profound inscription. Two mysterious armed 
men stand as guards at the gate. 

Tamino enters and at the same time, it is not amiss to 
mention, Mozart enters. With the sound of his music, 
especially at this moment of the opera, all incongruities 
vanish; the hidden purpose and meaning grow clear. 
Words may confuse,. but music illumines. In a rigid 
unison of tenor and bass, with the simple solemnity of a 
Gregorian chant, the Armed Men interpret Tamino 
the mystic words above the gate: words to the effect that 
whoever passes through that flame-illumined gate, to 
be purified by fire and water (there is a water-fall shown 
later on)—whoever thus dares, will eventully emerge 
triumphant, initiated to all mysteries, and destined to 
all bliss. The tones of these Armed Men are telling 
and sure as gold arrows shot from a bow. But you will 
not give much heed to them; it is the ensemble, the 
impressive combine of orchestra and voice that here 
holds you spellbound. ‘The director’s baton becomes the 
wand of a necromancer, invoking a fugue that is far 
more “tremendous” and inspiring than the massive moun- 
tain built up on the stage. A fugue ever and always con- 
veys the thought of life and its multiple intricacies, how 
the simplest theme—the most trifling word or act— 
may lead to incalculable consequences. A harmless little 
sequence of soft staccato notes starts the turmoil in this 
fugue; a fragment of youth, it seems, sent forth to dare 


the dragon’s teeth of life. It is tossed about, bitten into, 


snarled at, flung high and flung low, overcome by flames 


198 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


of passion, uplifted again, then again hit hard by the 
immutable laws of Fate—or of harmony. A seething 
furnace of fire is that fugue in the orchestra, while the 
firm choral chant above it typifies well the peace of a 
towering mountain whose white-crowned peak eternally 
touches Heaven. 

Tamino, on hearing the words of the dire inscription, 
answers firmly: 

“T shrink from naught; throw wide the gate of 
Wienror ly 

At this moment Pamina’s voice is heard approaching. 
Her three guides—Silence, Patience and Perseverance— 
are leading her to her heart’s desire. Tamuino cries out 
enraptured as she enters, and he asks the Armed Men 
whether the ban is lifted and he may speak to her at 
last. They give assent, and the lovers embrace—exulting 
and exalted in the face of death. 

Tamino shows to Pamina the fiery test ahead of him, 
the “appalling paths of danger.” To this she answers in 
tones unfaltering, “Ill tread them at your side.” No 
purgatorial flames alarm her after the torment of his 
silence. Nay, more; so fearless is she, with love at rest 
in her heart, that she takes the lead—‘‘as tho the road 
*mid roses lay.’ And with that ancient wisdom—that 
quick insight the woman who loves is endowed with— 
Pamina bids him play on his Magic Flute; “it will quell 
the spell of our terror.” The Magic Flute, of course, 
means Love. 

A super-woman, love has made of Pamina. In the 
closing quartet of this scene her voice rings out over 
all. The Armed Men join with the lovers in a fugue- 
finale, an apostrophe to the trial ahead of them. It is 
as rouzing, climactic, and terrifying as music and words 


“THE MAGIC FLUTE” 199 


can make it. Then sudden silence! The huge gates are 
opened; Tamino and Pamina enter; the gates close 
behind them. The Armed Men disappear, and we watch 
the lovers through the gates. Still the silence! Then 
softly a flute-tone, a melody—hesitating, fragile—float- 
ing through the air with a faint support of whispering 
trombone and a tremulous touch of a distant drum. 
Very adagio, very pianissimo, is this vague mystical inter- 
lude interpreting in tones the fantastic idea of a march 
through the elements. 

We see beyond the gates the determined love-guided 
pair “passing through the fire’”—a piece of stage-direc- 
tion that would read, and seem, and be ridiculous were 
it not for the miracle of the music, a miracle that in this 
instance largely consists in the power of contrast—of 
rhythmic pauses, and subtle tone-quality. The preced- 
ing avalanch of fugue has exposed this sublimate of 
music into a rarified atmosphere—a startling prominence. 
The effect is indescribable—breath-catching. It stabs— 
it hurts. One senses a beauty that blinds—a tenderness 
that stings—a purified peace too great to endure. There 
are just fourteen measures of this flute-music—measures 
that are magic indeed. 

As it ends we hear the lovers singing softly in the 
primeval harmony of sixths and thirds—singing of their 
wondering joy that the flames are conquered, and of 
their determined courage to face the final test of the 
“all-engulfing waves.” 

While they sing thus to the extent of seven adagio 
measures consuming about three minutes of time, Herr 
Schickaneder is again busy back-stage—very, very busy. 

The libretto informs us that “the mountain changes into 
another.” This one presumably is also “tremendous.” 


200 OPE RATAN DVIS S MAKS 


But the resemblance here ceases. The first mountain 
had flames underneath it—this one has a “torrent that 
precipitates itself from the summit.’”’ I have an idea 
that this scene of the opera was not only in the back of 
Schickaneder’s brain, but that the machinery for it was 
in the back of the theater, before Mozart was even 
approached for the music. However it was done we 
are given to understand that somehow the fiery moun- 
tain is changed into a watery one. A momentary dark 
stage is the modern method of achieving this transforma- 
tion. With the dawn of the torrential peak, the music 
again lifts to that rarefied atmosphere of the flute- 
melody—and we see Tamino and Pamina traverse the 
waters. As before, those tender, distant, but penetrating . 
flute-tones impart an unearthly stillness to the scene, in 
spite of the slight supporting throb of muted drum and 
trombone. Higher and higher rise the waters (so the 
directions read) while the lovers press on, Tamuino still 
playing his flute, still clinging to love. At last the torrent 
submerges them. (I am quoting the libretto.) They 
have learned to meet death without fear: the great Initia- 
tion is over. 

At once that amazing mountain divides; in its center 
is a temple. Tamino and Pamina are seen kneeling 
before it, giving thanks. Then many voices—unseen 
voices—sing in loud allegro—“‘Hail! All Hail! The 
crown of life awaits you!” It is a throbbing, shouting 
forecast of the Handel “Hallelujah.” We may be sure 
that this and the preceding fantastic but solemn scenes 
were to Mozart the heart and soul of the opera. He was 
singing his own creed in this opera and in a sense, too, 
his swan-song. In a letter to his father at this time he 
writes: “I have come to regard death as the key that 


ibe VA GIG BLEW 201 


unlocks our happiness. I never lie down in bed without 
considering that perhaps—young as I am—lI may the 
next day be no more.” 

So this flute-music—set as it is immediately after the 
fugal frenzy which so readily suggests life—is in reality 
Mozart’s message of peace in death, be the torments what 
they may. 

After these seventy pages of self-expression, this 
unfettered flight to the empyrean, Mozart, like other mor- 
tals, is called upon to do penance. Papageno who off- 
stage has very literally moved mountains, now claims a 
reward from his Maker: a solo-scene all his own; he, 
too, yearns for self-expression., There really is a bit of 
soul-soaring here on the part of Herr Director Schicka- 
neder. He consents to eliminate the spoken word, does all 
his funny work from now on strictly in time and in tune 
with music. This is a big concession, almiost sacrificial, 
whereby he shares his applause with the composer—by 
such acts the soul grows. 

We see Papageno still alone and disconsolate after the 
suddenly discovered Papagena has with equal suddenness 
disappeared when he forgot his vow and spoke to her. 
In desperation he still calls to her, cries her name again 
and again—plays on his pipe, calls her “wife,” “sweet- 
heart,’ and “darling.” But no answer comes to him. 
So despairing is he at thought of his lost love that he 
finally takes a rope and makes ready to end all by hang- 
ing himself on “yon bough.” He goes about it very 
slowly, pauses again and again to give Fate a chance to 
intervene. With the rope on the branch and his head 
in the loop, he still postpones the final yank, the impos- 

sible jerk which he pretends to believe will suspend him. 
Throughout this buffoon despair the orchestra is all 


202 OPER AGA ND aS. eS 


allegro, buzzing with the airiest, merriest, sort of ‘‘one, 
two, three’ music. Mozart never misunderstands his 
cue; when the action calls for comedy, he does his part 
every time. He makes merry among the instruments, 
plays the part of Puck, dispenses prank-like tunes while 
all the time a quest for the Lost Chord—that ultimate 
Harmony that sounds the soul’s awakening—is what his 
Muse would prefer. 

Maybe Papageno really thinks he is in earnest. Once 
again he cries to the world, “Good-by !’’—and he actually 
does take hold of the dangling rope. At this point the 
three guardian Genii appear. The music remains allegro 
but its rhythm changes to the good old common time. 
That firm four-beat, after the tripping three, sounds so 
business-like and practical, one unconsciously sits upright 
and square-shouldered. Those mellow boy-voices in their 
usual sweet accord of thirds and sixths can not express 
even disapproval harshly; but they stay his act—bid him 
desist, then in quiet tones that somehow express the end- 
less patience of the “still small voice,” they suggest that 
he ring his peal of bells. The poor fool had entirely 
forgotten these. He picks them up at once, and so does 
the music. 

Bell-music in Grand Opera is always effective. Com- 
posers never fail, when occasion offers, to ring in glad- 
some changes on this theme. The “Bells of Corneville’ 
sound a peal that, once heard, never leaves one. The 
Bell-song in “Lakmé’ has made that opera immortal. 
These instances are more prominent in their respective 
operas than the brief phrases we have here, but brighter 
effects of the Campanile can nowhere be found than in 
this “Magic” opera of Mozart’s. The rhythm is buoyant 
as a bubble—a flash and a leap of gambolling sunbeams. 


PE CURY NMA GIG TE TUTE 203 


With a parting admonishment to the bell-piayer to 
“turn now and look’’—the Geni disappear. Papageno 
turns and sees—Papagena. There follows the inevitable 
droll duet, and we now learn the reason (Schickaneder 
probably thought it an inspiration) for those closely 
identical names; they were devised for the purpose of 
achieving a pun. ‘Tip-toeing in mazed astonishment 
toward each other—in unison with a touch of pussy- 
footing music in the orchestra—the two clown-characters 
exclaim, “Is it you—-Pa-pa-pa-pa-geno!’’ Then they 
further sing jocosely of their immediate wedding and 
the future blessing of little boys and girls who, too, will 
say—*Pa-pa-pa-pa-geno!’’ This play of words hardly 
levels up to the joyous jugglery of Gilbert, but Sullivan 
is here given more than a working model in the way of 
a patter-duet. Mozart never wavers, and never imitates 
even himself. Deadly tired he must have grown of 
devising melodies for this comedy-pair ; characters wholly 
extraneous to the real purpose of the opera—the huge 
riddle of life, the dark wanderings of “Everyman” and 
“Everywoman’—their perpetual encounter with soul- 
testing terror. The opera could well be given sans 
Papageno and his mate; there would be no noticeable 
gaps. But Mozart lived up to his contract—furnished 
all the music required—tho some of it, we imagine, was 
penned with set teeth! 

But the dancing dolls are done a at last. You may 
be sure, however, that with the final exit of Herr Papa- 
geno, the rest of the libretto is made brief as possible. 
The Queen and Monostatos are now in league to destroy 
Sarastro. The Three Ladies are also in the plot. They 
all enter stealthily and sing “softly, softly, softly !’— 
in true Grand-Opera fashion. The libretto leaves us 


204 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


vague as to their plan, but they tell us—while still sing- 
ing softly—‘the temple we undermine’—so we infer 
some use of dynamite. 

Astrafiamente has no staccato now nor high notes— 
she is shorn of all vocal filigree. Revenge is plain and 
unbeautiful and, musically speaking, must be maintained, 
in the minor. 

Distant thunder is heard or, it may be, the rumble of 
an explosion. The conspirators are terribly frightened 
tho, of course, they keep right on singing. They are 
still more frightened when they suddenly perceive that 
their deep-laid plan has achieved nothing more than the 
demolishment of one intervening wall. Its fall destroys, 
not Sarastro, but Astrafiamente herseli—“Queen of 
Night’”—for it now lets shine full upon her the rays of 
the Sun—just rising. 

Beyond the tumbled Masonry—(note the symbolism 
here) we see the interior of the temple still secure with 
Sarastro on his throne while Tamino and Pamina stand 
before the altar united at last—triumphant Initiates to 
the great mysteries. 

At sight of the Sun the Queen and her followers “sink 
down to unending gloom.” There is more than a hint 
that Astrafiamente was intended to portray Queen ‘Maria 
Theresa as the Masons viewed her. 

With this débacle of dark autocracy there is tragedy 
in the music; an effect sharp and poignant—a page of 
real music-drama. Wagner foretold, but devoid of dis- 
cord, for cacophony has no place in Mozart’s realm; that 
night-bird soaring high in modern music slinks to cover, 
dwindles to naught, before the radiant sun-shield of 
Mozart’s beaming harmonies. 

A finale jubilant chorus of Priests and _ novitiates 


Ee NACE y Be WEl Biy 205 


sounds from the temple. ‘Wisdom and truth win eter- 
nity’s crown; virtue prevaileth forever.” Emblem of 
Masonry these words may be, or of Christ—or of 
Buddha. All creeds find accord in the divine harmony 
of music. 

With pontifical trumpets by way of introduction and 
the solemnity of firm orchestral chords, the chorus closes 
with an allegro, the soprano mounting high, the violins 
following, the cellos close after—all tossing to each other 
bright fragments of melody; a seraphic gambol in the 
Elysian fields. 

When the curtain falls, we have a lingering memory 
of a beautiful message—the beatitude of death well won, 
and the Dawn of Joy thereafter! 


GELA Po BRL 
THE GENIUS OF GERALDINE FARRAR 


(Ao twenty years ago rumors, vague as perfume 

from an unfolding flower, began to reach America 
about a new prima donna; a Boston girl, very young and 
very beautiful; singing at the Berlin Royal Opera House. 
No American had ever held such a position before— 
life-member of the opera company which Kaiser Wilhelm 
supervised, and the Great Frederick founded. 

Years went by and still the name of Geraldine Farrar 
was wafted across the waters—and still she was spoken 
of as “very young.” 

American critics grew somewhat incredulous; Ger- 
many, of course, is musical and deep-rooted in the science 
of the art, but New York holds a record of her own in 
matters operatic, and is not disposed to accept unchal- 
lenged a verdict from the land of beer and thorough-bass. 

At last the hour came when Geraldine Farrar appeared 
as a star in her native land. It was a momentous occa- 
sion—the opening of the season; a brilliant audience, 
diamond-glinting and décolleté; an audience familiar 
with the value of Tiffany tiaras, but inclined to be 
dubious about Berlin laurels. | 

The curtain rose upon the first act of “Romeo and 
Juliet” ; a blaze of color and a whirl of gay music. Soon 
the dancers dispersed, and a slender figure in sapphire 
satin sauntered down the Capulet stairs, came forward 
with quiet confidence, and commenced the famous Waltz 
Song—slowly—dreamily. 

206 


GERALDINE FARRAR 207 


With these very first notes Geraldine Farrar revealed 
originality; she sang them as tho thinking aloud; the 
words fell from her lips like a tender caress— 

“T would linger in this dream that enthralls me.” 

She closed the aria with brilliant tones, a high note— 
and a smile. Geraldine Farrar’s smile is something to 
drive a poet to sonnets—and a prince to sighs! 

One paper the next morning declared: “‘From that 
moment she could have wrapped the whole audience 
around her little finger.”’ 

There followed a “Farrar furor,” tho cautious critics 
were careful to point out that her performance as yet 
evinced nothing more than “a lovely voice, a peculiarly 
gifted dramatic temperament, youth, beauty, and con- 
siderable experience!’ That’s all! 

“She is not yet a finished artist,’ these critics said, 
but at four-and-twenty what would you? Her voice 
was “golden,” and no one denied that her histrionic gifts 
were phenomenal. 

It is strange—this quality of native greatness. In the 
case of these famous singers, one almost feels that the 
greatness makes the voice. The mind is what counts, 
after all. Geraldine Farrar impresses one forcibly with 
this fact. Her mind is alert, keen, observant, thoughtful, 
quick at reaching conclusions, widely interested, eager to 
learn, but at the same time self-contained and firmly 
poised. | 

When talking about music her face lights up. She 
has much to say; she has thought and studied deeply; 
she is intense, enthusiastic, full of her subject, aglow 
with earnestness and vitality. 

From early childhood she was always singing, always 
acting, and always intending to be a prima donna. 


208 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


3 


“T began voice-study when I was twelve,” she said, 
“but before that had sung all of ‘Faust’ in Italian, and 
acted it according to my own imagination.” 

When asked if she had not run some risk of harming 
the vocal cords by beginning so young, she explained that 
her voice at this age was remarkably mature and full. 
She was possessed, besides, with an irresistible desire to 
sing, so it seemed both prudent and wise to commence 
serious study thus early. 

“A born singer is imstinctive, and selects, almost in- 
stinctively, her individual means of expression, avoiding, 
in the main, what is distinctly harmful. But practise and 
study are continuously and always necessary. I work 
faithfully every day with scales and trills and intervals. 
Before a performance I go over my part, mentally, from 
beginning to end.” 

In reply to a question about her ambition, she answered 
promptly and impressively: 

“Yes, I have one very decided ambition: I wish to 
develop my powers to the fullest extent and most com- 
plete beauty, and then—I wish to have the courage, 
when physical strength no longer responds to the creative 
demands, to abdicate in favor of Youth! Youth must be 
recognized, enjoyed, encouraged! We should have more 
of this God-given fragrance in our mimic world, and 
less of hard-earned, middle-aged experience. 

“T intend to leave the stage when I am forty. I tell my 
mother she must drag me off then if I fail to go other- 
wise. I shall then have been singing in opera for twenty 
years. Twenty years is enough for any one; it’s a dog’s 
lite at best. * 


* When I heard this, I said to myself, we will wait and see—wait and see! 
If health and success are still yours Sweet Geraldine, you will be the first and 
only prima donna who ever abdicated at forty, and also the only human being I 





© AIME DUPONT, N. Y. 


GERALDINE FARRAR 





GERALDINE FARRAR 200 


Miss Farrar’s favorite recreation is “sleep—and much 
aGaitl? 

As for books, she likes “everything.” 

“T read a great deal,’ she commented. ‘When I was 
studying “Madame Butterfly,’ I read everything I could 
find about the Japanese. I tried to imbue myself with 
their spirit. I bought up old prints, and pictures, and 
‘costumes; I learned how they eat, and sleep, and walk, 
and talk, and think, and feel. J read books on the sub- 
ject in French and German, as well as in English.” 

Incidentally it came out that she memorized this most 
difficult of operas in fifteen days. 

“No, I am never afraid of forgetting my lines.” Then, 
tapping her forehead lightly, she added: “When a thing 
is once learned, it seems to stick in a certain corner of 
your brain and stay there.” 

There was youth and girlishness in her off-hand man- 
ier of making this remark. In fact, the artist and girl 
are constantly alternating in the play of her features, and 
it is fascinating to watch this hide-and-seek of youth 
and maturity. 

The girl-spirit was uppermost then, as she sank back 
comfortably in her big armchair, drew up her Frenchy 
peignoir more snugly about her, and related some of the 
droll contretemps that occur on the opera-house stage. 

“The audience never seems to see them, but the most 
ridiculous things happen, and then it is terrible when 
you want to laugh, but dare not.” 





know of to plan her life twenty years in advance, steer straight by the compass, 
reach the goal and then disembark. 

I have waited—and I have seen. 

In her fortieth year—boldly declared—the great, the adored, our only “Jerry,” 
stepped down from her throne; retired from the Metropolitan, just as she had 
lanned. 
: This to me is genuine greatness. Unswerving purpose, self-mastery always— 
these are the qualities that thrill and inspire. 


210 OPERA CAND UIT Se atiaskss 


A mention of Lilli Lehman suddenly sobered the con- 
versation. Lilli Lehmann was Geraldine Farrar’s 
teacher—‘‘and a very severe one’’—her pupil asserted. 

“But she—and all Germans—appreciate personality. 
That is why I have been allowed to develop my own 
ideas—to be individual. That is, to me, the most inter- 
esting part of the art. I am keenly interested in observ- 
ing life—the expression of people’s faces, their way of 
saying and doing things. Wherever I am, whatever I 
see, | am always finding something to use in my art. 

“T once saw a death—it sounds unfeeling to say it, 
but I now use the very expression | saw then in the 
finale of ‘Bohéme.’ ” 

Geraldine Farrar’s realism is a well-known phase of 
her art. A striking instance is her performance in the 
last act of “Romeo and Juliet”; she sings almost the 
entire scene /ying down! An amazing innovation 

“Perhaps it is unusual,” she commented, “but the simple 
repose seems to me more fully to accentuate the sublime 
and lyric climax of the tragedy.” 

This is a little rift into the prima donna’s viewpoint. 
She believes that “vocal intensity and dramatic value 
should so merge one into the other that they produce 
equalized sincerity of expression and constant changing 
of color, movement, and sentiment.” 

“Give your best always; take Sincerity for your guide, 
and Work, never-ending, for your master.” 

This is Geraldine Farrar’s creed. 


CHAPTER X 
“MADAME BUTTERFLY” 


EAUTY of plot and great music are to an opera 

what fair features and a noble soul are to woman. 
“Madame Butterfly” possesses these attributes, and has 
consequently won that instant success which only true 
beauty, in either art or nature, calls forth. 

Very seldom is the story of an opera so intensely 
thrilling that the original author is borne in mind; but 
it may be stated as a fact that no one applauds Giacomo 
Puccini’s splendid music without also thinking “AI 
Hail! to John Luther Long,” who wrote this strangely 
tender tragedy. 

Distinctly unique as a Grand-Opera setting is the Land 
of Cherry-blossoms. Never before have the higher har- 
monies been blended in with embroidered kimonos and 
chrysanthemum screens. The innovation is delightful, 
however; refreshing, uplifting, enlarging. By means of 
great music we are enabled to understand great emotion 
in the Little Land. 

In this opera the hero is the villain, if one may so 
express it. He is also an American! a lieutenant in the 
U. S. Navy, and from first to last he seems blandly un- 
conscious of his villainy. This is distressing morally, 
but musically one could wish it no different. As the 
rainbow-mist rises out of the whirlpool, so the beautiful 
in art is most often evolved from a maelstrom of sin 
and tragedy. | 

A flowered veranda to a tiny house, a lilac-garden that 


overlooks a far, fair view of Nagasaki, the bright blue 
unwatt 


212 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


bay and azure sky—this is the opening scene of Puccini’s 
opera. 

The brief orchestral prelude is a pretty piece of fugue- 
work, four-voiced and accurately constructed. A fugue 
is unusual in Grand Opera, but Puccini has a purpose in 
everything, and his music is essentially descriptive. The 
opening conversation in this opera concerns the construc- 
tion of the tiny villa, and as a fugue is the one music- 
form suggestive of rules and measurements—a secure 
foundation and precise superstructure—it is clear that 
this bit of musical masonry, with its themes overlapping 
but carefully joined, is intended to represent the house. 

On the stage the dainty dwelling is glowingly described 
by Goro, a Japanese marriage-broker, very obsequious 
in manners, but characterized in the orchestra by a most 
energetic, business-like theme that follows him around 
like a shadow. 

A wedding of his arranging is soon to take place, and 
this house has been rented for the honeymoon. The 
bridegroom, Lieutenant Pinkerton, of the U. S. Navy, is 
viewing the abode for the first time. He wears a hand- 
some uniform, and serves the opera as tenor, hero, lover, 
villain—all in one. 

Goro makes him acquainted also with the house- 
servant, Susuki; a solemn-faced, saffron-colored maiden, 
whose name means ‘Gentle-breeze-of-the-morning.”’ 
Pinkerton prefers to call her “Scarecrow.” 

The first invited guest to arrive is the U. S. Consul. 
A sympathetic and genuinely tender theme announces 
this character’s approach. Always listen to the orchestra 
if you would know the real nature of these people of 
the play. In Grand Opera, as in real life, words very 
often conceal thought; but by the power of music the 


PMADAME BUDTERPDY” 213 


listener is endowed with a temporary sense of omni- 
science: he can read the hearts and motives of the crea- 
tures he observes. 

It being still early, Pinkerton and the Consul seat 
themselves while the hero explains this marriage he is 
entering upon. But first he orders a “whisky and soda.” 

There is apparently no translation for this barroom 
barbarism, so the English words are used, and their 
effect is noticeably jarring. No critic has failed to 
remark this surprizing debut of fire-water on the lyric 
stage! There is charm and poetry in the Italian wine- 
glass, and we have grown accustomed to see that mingled 
with melody—but the American whisky-bottle stands 
remote from music as a pig from Paradise. Puccini 
seems to realize this, for he accompanies the obnoxious 
word with a discord! 

There is nothing discordant, however, in Pinkerton’s 
description of his bride—the lovely lady Butterfly— 
“dainty in stature—quaint little figure—seems to have 
stepped down, straight from a screen.” 

The music here is delicate and frail, like an exquisite 
tracery of gold lacquer. 

He intends to marry this Japanese bride in Japanese 
fashion, thereby making the tie unbinding in America— 
a slip-knot adjustment that she, poor thing, is unaware of. 

The Consul remonstrates with Pinkerton over his 
“easy-going gospel” of free love, but this light-hearted 
villain will not listen. He holds up his glass instead, 
and to a buried accompaniment of the “Star-spangled 
Banner,” he proposes a toast to America—and also to 
the day on which he shall wed in real marriage a real 
wife of his own nationality. 

With this atrocious toast scarcely uttered, poor little 


214 OP ERARAIND Gis soba 


trusting Butterfly is heard in the distance with her brides- 
maids, singing as they approach. A delirium of joy 
breathes through this song, which is a weird succession 
of Oriental intervals, strange as an opium dream. As 
the harmonies grow firmer, Butterfiy’s voice rings out 
above the others, while in the orchestra the conductor 
with his baton slowly unearths, like a buried diamond, 
the great love-theme of the opera. It beams forth in 
sultry splendor, a cluster of chords with imprisoned tones 
that flash forth unlooked-for harmonies. 

At last she enters—this Japanese heroine, her brilliant 
draperies as bright as her name. Her maidens all carry 
huge paper parasols and fluttering fans—a merry group 
of girls, filled with varied emotions of timidity, envy, 
curiosity, and fun. They courtesy, and smile, and sing 
and sigh, and lower their eyes with knowing charm. 

Throughout this scene it is interesting to note the 
different themes and their consistent use. A phrase of 
the opening fugue invariably appears whenever the house 
is mentioned; still another architectural motif protrudes 
into prominence every time the town Nagasaki is referred 
to. Susuki has a theme of her own; so has the Consul. 
When the relations of the bride troop in, we recognize 
the fact that they, too, have a theme; we learned it when 
Goro, some time back, was enumerating the expected 
guests. 

This theme now asserts itself in the orchestra as the 
grotesque company assembles. There is nothing great 
about this melody: it is a mincing, thin-bodied affair, 
but disports itself with much confidence during its little 
hour of importance; it shoves out every other theme 
from the orchestra and demands undivided attention. But 
at last the director’s stick chases it out of the enclosure. 


PMADAME BUDITERELY? 215 


The guests in the meantime have been gossiping among 
themselves, disparaging the bride, criticizing the groom— 
and partaking of his refreshments. 

All flats and sharps and accidentals are suddenly 
dropped from the score when the official registrar reads 
in monotone voice, and plain C major, the simple mar- 
riage form. 

The ceremony is soon over, but the guests linger on. 
Pinkerton plies them with wine, but makes little headway 
in hurrying the festivities to an end. He has grown 
heartily tired of these new relations, and longs to see 
them go, but, instead of any one leaving, another one 
suddenly arrives, an absent uncle, who plunges amongst 
them in a frenzy of wrath and excitement. He has 
learned at the American Mission that Butterfly, without 
telling her family, has changed her religion and cast off 
the faith of her fathers. 

Cries of horror, moans, and execrations follow this 
announcement. Butterfly is denounced by her family— 
abjured and disowned. She cowers before them, dis- 
tressed, but not utterly crushed, for love remains to con- 
sole her. 

The tragic theme of the opera; a gruesome sequence 
of minor thirds, takes this opportunity to stalk into the 
orchestra and reconnoiter, like an undertaker looking 
over the premises before he is really needed. This theme 
has active work to do later on, but as yet does not seem 
very terrifying. 

When the relations and guests are gone, Butterfly is 
soon persuaded to forget the “stupid tribe.” 

Evening has come; there is a twilight tinge to the 
music; it is dolce, expressione, and rallentando. 

Puccini is a master of modulations. He employs large, 


216 OPERAVAND LVS 7S LARS 


full harmonies—soul-asserting, all-engulfing chords— 
that feel their way from one key to another, and burst 
forth in new glory with every transition. This per- 
sistent progress through varying keys has an effect of 
leading the listener through different rooms in some 
palatial edifice. In the hands of a great composer, each 
key of the scale unlocks a new vista in the enchanted 
palace of music. 

Behind a screen on the veranda, Butterfly changes her 
chromatic kimono to one of white silk. She emerges 
with garments all soft and fluttering, like the trembling 
white wings of a night-moth. 

Pinkerton leads her into the garden, and there, under 
the spell of the silent stars, they sing of love and of the 
glorious mystic night, with its gentle breeze that passes 
like a benediction over the bending lilacs. Fireflies 
(cleverly imitated) hover in the air and flicker faintly, 
like candles in a distant chancel. The conductor waving 
his wand, like a priest the swinging censor, evokes a 
wreathing mist of music that enwraps the lovers in a 
drapery of dreams. 

Melodies and harmonies rise into being and pass away 
like fantoms floating by, until at last the great love-theme 
of the opera once again is flashed upon us. The diamond, 
scarce revealed before, is now in its proper setting. It is 
displayed in solemn glory by the dignitary at the desk, 
who, with upraised, swaying hands, holds aloft this 
precious theme, as a priest does the sacred emblem. 

Act II pictures the interior of Butterfly’s house. 

There is desolation in the home; the orchestra tells 
us this, for the tragic theme possesses the instruments, 
creeping around among them, serpent-like, and enfolding 
them in its coils. 





© AIME DUPONT, N. Y. 


FARRAR AS “MADAME BUTTERFLY” 





“MADAME BUTTERFLY” oy, 


The rising curtain reveals Susuki kneeling before a 
shrine; she is praying that Pinkerton may return. 

Three times have the dragon-kites swelled in the 
breeze and the peach trees flushed into bloom since the 
day he sailed away. 

Her prayer abounds in strange and uncouth harmonies 
that wail themselves into silence. When the incantation is 
finished, an orchestral phrase of keen despair and _tor- 
tured hope accompanies Butterfly as she enters and piti- 
fully asks: “How soon shall we be starving?” 

Susuki counts over the few remaining yen, and ex- 
presses doubt about Pinkerton’s return, Again that same 
theme of anguish pierces the air like a knife as Butterfly 
shrieks out: “Silence!” She will not listen to doubt. 
She insists that he will return, and she fondly adds, “he 
will call me again his tiny child-wife, his little Butterfly!” 

With this memory there is a momentary return of 
the great love-theme in the orchestra; tender and fleeting, 
like a smile on the face of the dying. 

Butterfly sings of the radiant hour, some day, when 
they shall see “in the distance a little thread of smoke,” 
and then “a trim, white vessel,” flying the American flag! 

The music of this aria has a confident ring and a 
forward swing, like a great ship nearing shore. Large 
and splendid is the final climax: 

“He will return—I know!” 

A familiar theme in the orchestra heralds the approach 
of the U. S. Consul. He brings a letter from Pinkerton 
which he wishes Butterfly to hear, but Japanese polite- 
ness interferes for some time. He must accept tea and 
_ wine, a pipe to smoke, and a cushion to sit on. He is 
questioned about his health and the health of his honor- 


218 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


able ancestors. His own “Augustness’ is profusely 
welcomed. 

Scarcely have these formalities been accomplished 
when another visitor arrives—a pompous personage, 
accompanied by servants who bring presents and flowers. 
He comes to persuade Madame Butterfly that her hus- 
band’s absence amounts to a divorce, and that he, Prince 
Yamadori, should be accepted as Pinkerton’s successor. 

This energetic woer, lemon-faced and almond-eyed, 
imparts to the music a spicy flavor, grotesque and Japa- 
nese. His brief, breezy phrases have a turn and tang 
that belongs entirely to the Land of Nippon; staccato 
suggestions of chop-sticks and oolong. 

The hostess politely declines to listen to her elaborate 
suitor. 

She busies herself pouring tea, while in the orchestra 
a delightfully tender, untroubled waltz-theme reflects her 
tranquil spirit, which is like some quiet mountain pool in 
the path of a coming avalanche. 

Impending disaster is near. Pinkerton’s letter contains 
news that will bring devastation to the little Japanese 
home. He is coming back—but not to see Butterfly; a 
new wife comes with him. 

The Consul waits until Yamadori has gone, then 
bravely tries to read the letter, but his eager listener is 
too excited to hear to the end. 

“He is coming!’ That is enough! Her joy is un- 
bounded. She speeds from the room and in a moment 
returns with a sunny-haired child on her shoulders—her 
“baby-boy!’—her “noble little American!’—to whom 
she tells the glad news that his father soon will return. 

The distressed Consul has not the heart to enlighten her 
further. He leaves rather abruptly. 


PMADAME, BUTTERPLY” ANG, 


A moment later a signal gun is heard in the distance. 

Susuki plunges in, breathless—“The harbor cannon!’ 
Both women rush to the window. ‘They can see the ship! 
A man-of-war! The Stars and Stripes! 

Oh, the pain of this joy! The audience, knowing all, 
is torn and racked with emotion as the orchestra reiterates 
Butterfly’s recent song of confidence about “his sure 
return.” 

Now is her “hour of triumph!’ She proclaims it to 
high heaven—to Susuki—and to all “the eight hundred 
thousand gods and goddesses of Japan.”’ 

All the world had told her he would forget and never 
return—but she knew!—she knew! Now, at last, her 
faith triumphs—he is here! 

Superb is the crescendo now sweeping upward on the 
crest of America’s martial theme. The Star-Spangled 
Banner is bugled by the instruments, while Butierfly’s 
voice, in high and jubilant accord, sings again the glad 
words: “He is here!—he loves me!’ 

In the orchestra the love-theme—the great theme— 
arises slowly and passes by like a spirit of the past, a soul 
long dead, a memory faded. 

Now follows a poetic scene unsurpassed for picturesque 
charm and grace. 

In accordance with Japanese custom, the two women 
sprinkle the room with flowers, in honor of. the master’s 
home-coming. 

Great baskets full of blossoms are brought in by 
Susuki, while Butterfly, always singing, showers the 
room with petals. She sways with the rhythm of joy 
and music, flinging the flowers in reckless profusion, her 
voice seeming to follow their flight—up in the air—and 
down again. 





220 OPERAVAND MTS oleh 


Susuki, too, scatters rainbow-clouds of jasmine, peach- 
blooms, and violets; her contralto voice at the same time 
giving depth of color to the music. In the orchestra 
dainty fluttering phrases are lightly tossed about, as tho 
shaken from the instruments by a passing breeze. 

Full of strange involutions and harmonies, the music 
of this “flower-duet” possesses the essential quality of 
all that is lasting and classic—hidden beauty beneath the 
obvious. With the choicest mixing of harmony, orchestra 
and voice, Puccini has brewed a blend most rare, and 
sugared it with melody. 

When the baskets are emptied and the last flower 
fallen, a few final notes of the refrain still left in the 
orchestra are hurriedly brushed out by the conductor’s 
baton. : 

On the stage, as the daylight melts into dusk, Butterfly, 
all in a flurry, is decking herself in her wedding gown, 
while the orchestra calls up memories of the lilac-garden 
and the fireflies. 

When all is ready, Butterfly, Susuki, and the little one 
take positions at the window. 

Long and patiently they watch and wait. 

The orchestra plays a soft, unchanging staccato accom- 
paniment. The moonlight finds its way into the room. 

At last the maid and the child fall asleep. Not so 
with Butterfly; rigid and still she stands at the window, 
her eyes on the distant harbor-lights. 

A sound of far-away voices softly humming a sad, 
weird refrain, fills the scene with mystery, suggesting 
the moan of guardian spirits. All this while the gentle 
staccato harmonies in the orchestra continue to flit back 
and forth, like the changing lights of swinging lanterns. 

Butterfly does not move. The curtain slowly descends. 


VENDA MES BW TERE DY 221 


The prelude to the last act opens with a theme that 
crashes and tears its way into prominence: a pitiless, 
gruesome group of notes, that sounds vaguely familiar, 
tho it has never been emphasized like the tragic-theme 
and others gone before. In the first act this dire phrase 
was heard for a moment, buried softly among the har- 
monies that accompanied Butterfly’s first entrance song. 
She was happy then, but, nevertheless, this germ of agony 
was lurking near, as tho to suggest that we, each one, 
carry within our own temperament the weakness or fault 
that will eventually lead us to grief. 

The orchestra is kept very active during this prelude 
or intermission. ‘The past is presented in flashes of old 
themes, and the coming day is presaged by new phrases 
of potent meaning. Sounds of the harbor life beginning 
to stir, distant voices of sailors chanting, are heard even 
before the curtain rises. When this is lifted, behold poor 
Butterfly still at her post! All night she has watched 
and waited, never moving, never doubting. 

Now the dawn, cruel, cold-eyed and leering, begins to 
peer through the window. The pale, frail figure in her 
wedding gown still does not move; she still hopes on, 
counting the stars as they disappear; measuring each 
moment by her heart’s wild beating. 

The dawn grows rosy, the music in the orchestra tells 
of the world’s awakening. The sun’s glad welcome is 
proclaimed in a resounding pzan of harmonies, pierced 
with sharp, bright strokes from the triangle. 

But all this brilliant daybreak music fails to modify 
the tragedy of the dawn. 

Susukt awakens to despair, but poor little Butterfly 
still asserts, “He'll come! He'll come!” 

When urged by the maid to rest, she takes the little 


222 ORD RAMAN DAT SAS ARS 


one up in her arms, soothing him gently with a quiet 
song as she mounts the stairs to her sleeping-room. 

Scarcely has she gone, when Susuki is startled by a 
knock at the door. Pinkerton has come—and the Consul 
with him, but they tell the maid not to summon her 
mistress—not yet. 

The music of the flower-duet fills the air like a faint 
perfume as Pinkerton observes the withered blossoms, 
and Susuki explains the decorations and tells of Butter- 
fly’s weary vigil. A moment later she sees through the 
window a lady waiting in the garden. 

It is Pinkerton’s wife. 

“Hallowed souls of our fathers! The world is plunged 
in gloom!” 

Susuki falls prostrate on her knees. 

The ensuing trio is a magnificent musical unfoldment 
of sympathy from the Consul, remorse from Pinkerton, 
and consternation from Susuki. It is a splendid mingling 
of emotion and melody. 

The two men are left alone as the maid goes out to 
speak with the new wife. Pinkerton acts properly dis- 
tressed over the situation, and his friend, being only 
human, can not refrain from saying, “I told you so,” 
whereupon the music of his warning remonstrance in 
the first act is plainly marked in the orchestra, like an 
underscoring to written words. 

Pinkerton sighs over the room and its associations, 
sheds a few tears, and then decides the strain is too great 
for him. As he leaves the house, his wife and Susuki — 
walk into view at the window. 

At this moment Butterfly comes rushing down the 
stairs; she has heard voices—‘‘he is here!” 

Susukt tries to ward off the evil moment, but the hour 


PMIADAME BUTT EREBEY’ 222 


has struck. Vhe tragic theme rises up supreme—reveal- 
ing itself in unclothed hideousness: all the other themes 
have fallen away; they were as mere empty masks over 
the face of truth—behind life is always death—back of 
the smile is a skeleton. 

Through the open window Butterfly sees the “other 
woman.” 

“Who are you?’ Mechanically her lips frame the 
words, as she stands there, paralyzed—stunned. But the 
question was perfunctory; the explanations that follow 
only confirm what she knew at first sight. 

Very gently the American wife proposes to Butterfly 
to adopt her child and bring him up as her own. 

The Japanese mother listens dumbly—then slowly 
realizes that unless she consents to this plan her boy will 
have no name. 

Butterfly says very little—but she accedes. She asks 
however, that Mr. Pinkerton himself shall come for the 
child. ‘Come in half an hour—in half an hour.” 

Agreed to this, the Consul and the American lady go 
away. 

Susuki is now quietly ordered to leave the room. She 
protests, but her mistress is firm; she wishes to be alone. 

When the weeping maid has gone, Butterfly lights a 
lamp at the little shrine and bows before it. Then she 
takes from the wall a dagger, but drops this as the baby 
suddenly enters, shoved in by Susuki—faithful slave! 
who, forbidden to enter herself, thus blindly tries to 
frustrate Butterfly’s ominous wish to be alone. 

The child rushes to its mother’s arms, and Butterfly 
clasps it wildly, calling it all the extravagant love-names 
Japanese fancy can devise. 

“°Tis for you, my love, that I am dying!” 


224 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


She holds him at arm’s-length and bids him look long 
and well upon her face. The baby tosses his head and 
laughs; he little recks what she is saying: 

“Take one last look on your mother’s face, that the 
memory may linger.” 

The tragic theme attains a grandeur now that makes it 
seem the apotheosis of human heart-ache. Through the 
alembic of the composer’s art this gruesome theme 
emerges ablaze with a terrible glory. It sweeps apast 
like a fiery chariot, bearing poor little Butterfly’s soul to 
heaven. 

There is little more to record; the moment of death 
seems already gone through in bidding the child good- 
by. What follows is done very quietly; every move- 
ment is lifeless and spiritless. She ties a bandage about 
the little one’s eyes, and she puts in his hand an American 
flag; the Japanese mother’s token of surrender. 

Then Butterfly picks up the dagger. The deed is soon 
done; she totters to the floor, and with her last breath 
tries to reach for her baby’s hand. 


a, a 







Ps 


a a 
el 





NELLIE MEI BA 


CHARTER TXT 
Memon, lie AUSTRALIAN’ NIGHTINGALE 


MEMORABLE performance of “Aida” was 

given in London, at Covent Garden, a number of 
years ago. The Ethiopian slave-girl, dark-tinted and 
slight of figure, attracted no particular attention with her 
first unimportant recitative notes. The audience was 
diverted by the fine tenor singing, the excellent contralto, 
and the well-drilled work of the chorus. There followed 
more of this ensemble, more good orchestral playing, 
and then an effect of melody, or rhythm, or something— 
that gradually caused every pulse to quicken, and stirred 
every soul in a strange, unaccountable way, until sud- 
denly we realized that it was not the rhythm, or the 
harmony, or the tenor, or the orchestra, but one soprano 
voice, whose tones seemed to penetrate all space and soar 
to all heights and thrill all hearts in a manner that was 
overpowering! 

The slave-girl was singing! A new star from the 
Southern Hemisphere was just beginning to appear in 
the North! A “new name’ had been added, and was 
soon to be heard by “all who had an ear to hear’— 
Melba, the Australian Nightingale. 

All critics agree that the quality of her voice has never, 
in the annals of music, been surpassed. 

In furnishing Melba her name, which is a diminutive 
of Melbourne, the far continent has sprung into a musi- 
cal prominence it never before attained. From a land 
at the outer edge of the world, a sovereign of song has 


arisen. 
225 


Lg OPERA AND ITS STARS 


It would, of course, be artistic and effective to picture 
Melba’s early life as one of struggle and privation. But, 
search as one will, not a crust or a tatter turns up in 
her history; She never shivered on a doorstep, or sang 
for pennies in the street! Let the dismal truth be told— 
her father was wealthy, and his gifted daughter never 
lacked for anything. 

Nellie Mitchell, as she was known in those days, was 
gifted not only with a voice, but with a splendid determi- 
nation to work. She practised diligently all the time in 
the line of her ambition, and learned to play admirably 
on the piano, violin, and pipe-organ. All this in spite 
of the diversions and enticements of young companions 
and monied pastimes. Wealth, as well as poverty, may 
serve to hinder progress, and it is much to Melba’s credit 
that she had the perseverance to work unceasingly. 

Even at school, during recess hours, she was always 
humming and trilling. This latter trick was a source of 
puzzling delight to her comrades, who never tired of 
hearing “that funny noise she made in her throat.”’ The 
marvelous Melba trill, you see, was a gift of the gracious 
Fates at her birth—just back of the silver spoon in her 
mouth was tucked a golden trill. 

The story of her childhood is best told in her own 
words: 

“My mother was an accomplished amateur musician, 
and it was her playing that first gave me an idea of the 
charms of music. I was forever humming everything I 
heard, and she was always telling me to stop, for my 
noise was unceasing! My favorite song was ‘Coming 
Thro’ the Rye.’ I also liked ‘Nellie Bly,’ because my 
own name was Nellie!’ 


MELBA 227, 


Incidentally, it was learned that dolls were tabued by 
this prima donna in pinafores. 

“T hated dolls. My favorite toys were horses—wooden 
horses. One given to me by my father’s secretary was 
almost an idol to me for years.”’ 

Recurring to the subject of music, Mme. Melba con- 
tinued: 

“T didn’t sing much when a child; I only hummed. 
And by the way, a child’s voice should be carefully 
guarded. I consider the ensemble singing in schools as 
ruinous to good voices. Each one tries to outdo the 
other, and the tender vocal cords are strained and tired. 
I, personally, did not seriously study singing until after 
my marriage at seventeen years of age.” 

The preparation required for Mme. Melba’s career was 
neither very long nor arduous. She studied nine months 
with Marchese, then was ready to make her début in 
Brussels as a star. 

All things came easy to her, because her voice never 
had to be placed; her tones were jewels already set. 

“The first opera I ever heard was ‘Rigoletto.’ That 
was in Paris, when I was studying. What did I think 
of it? Well, I dare say my inexperience made me very 
bumptious, but I remember thinking I could do it better 
myself ! In Australia | had no chance to hear operas. 
‘Lucia’ I have never yet heard, tho that is perhaps the 
role most associated with my name.” | 

“Lucia” has, indeed, become a Melba possession. The 
mad-scene alone, on a program with her name, would 
invariably crowd the house. It is a veritable frolic to 
hear her in this aria. She is pace-maker, as it were, to 
the flute, which repeats every phrase that she sings. It 
is the prettiest race ever run, and when at the finish the 


228 OPERA ANDAT TS STARS 


time-keeper brings down his baton, the audience cheers 
itself hoarse for the winner. 

When asked her opinion of the new gramophones and 
the wonderful records of her voice, Madame Melba spoke 
with enthusiasm. 

“They are, indeed, a remarkable achievement. [I am 
looking, however, for still greater improvements, and am 
keenly interested in every new development.”’ | 

A matter of “keen interest” it must, indeed, be to 
every prima donna of to-day—this amazing, magic 
trumpet that can record the subtle individual quality of 
a singer’s voice, and give it gloriously forth again when 
desired. By means of this weird invention, the present 
vintage of fine voices can be bottled up like rare wine, 
and poured out in future years. More wonderful still: 
like the “widow’s cruse,” this trumpet never grows 
empty; from its uptilted mouth the flow of song will 
stream on continuously, if so desired and directed. It 
is enough to make poor Jenny Lind and other long-silent 
Singers grieve and groan in their graves: they died too 
soon to profit by the powers of this recording trumpet— 
which surely has no rival save the one that Gabriel blows. 

Some further random questions about the experiences 
of a prima donna elicited the following item. Mme. 
Melba smiled as she told it: 

“Yes, I have some queer things said to me. Just 
recently a young girl of eighteen, who wished me to hear 
her sing, assured me that there were only two fine voices 
in the world to-day—hers and mine! 

“But I must tell you,” she added brightly, “the most 
graceful compliment ever paid me. It was by an Irish 
woman, who, in commenting on the lack of song in the 
native birds of Australia, pointed out that they had 


MELBA 229 


treasured up all their melody through the ages and then 
had given it to me.” 

Some one has said, “The ease of Melba’s singing is 
positively audacious!’ She certainly makes light of the 
most time-honored difficulties. She will start a high note 
without any preparation, with apparently no breath and 
no change of the lips. Faint at first as the “fabric of a 
dream,” it is followed by the gradual grandeur of a 
glorious tone, straight and true as a beam of light, until 
finally it attains the full zenith of a crescendo. 

In a bewildering variety of ways writers have 
attempted to describe the wonder of her voice. 

“It seems to develop in the listener a new sense; he 
feels that each tone always has been and always will be. 
She literally lays them out on the air.” 

“Her tone-production is as much a gift as the voice 
itself.”’ 

After all, “she is Melba, the incomparable, whose 
beauty of voice is only equaled by the perfection of her 
art.” 

“In future years the present time will be referred to, 
musically, as ‘in the days of Melba.’ ”’ 

Like all great prima donnas, Madame Melba has a 
beautiful home of her own, and a country place to which 
she hies in the summer. Her town house is near Hyde 
Park, London. 

Once we imagined these song-birds, during the hot 
months, resting luxuriantly in their various retreats— 
Melba in her river residence, Calvé in her French chateau, 
Jean de Reszke on his Polish estate, Eames in her Italian 
castle, and Patti at “Craig y Nos.” But it is hardly an 
accurate picture, for rest to the artist still means work. 
They study all summer, every one of them, and entertain 


230 OPERAVAN DEES eS TAR S 


other artists, who work with them, or, at any rate, con- 
tribute to the perpetual whirl of music in which they live. 

A very good idea of the home life of these song- 
queens was given to me by a young lady who sojourned 
with one of them for several months. | 

“Do you know,” she said, “it was positively depressing 
to be near so much talent and genius. Why, in the 
drawing-room they would be talking seven or eight 
languages; and some one would improvise at the piano, 
while another would take a violin and join in with the 
most wonderful cadenzas, and then, perhaps, the piano- 
player would step aside and some one else would slide 
into his place and continue the improvisation the first one 
had begun; and so on all the time, until really I began 
to feel just about as small and worthless as a little pinch 
of dust.” 


CHAPTER XII 
“LAKME” 


AKME was one of Patti’s most successful réles, 
and very few other singers have ventured to 
attempt it. But Madame Melba has sung it, and her per- 
formance, while not obliterating all memory of Patti, has 
certainly made indelible the memory of Melba. 

“Lakmé”’ is composed by Delibes. This name at once 
recalls that exquisite “‘pizzicato” from the ballet “Sylvia,” 
a musical fragment that has floated around the world and 
stuck to the programs of every land. The same delicate 
fancy and witchery that characterize the ballet are also 
prominent in the opera. His style is perhaps the furthest 
removed from Wagner of any modern composer. 
“Lakmé” has no crescendo worth mentioning, and the 
themes are, for the most part, left to take care of them- 
selves; but every phrase is fascinating, and there is never 
a tedious passage. 

The prelude opens in the minor key with a group of 
octaves erect and solemn as pine trees. The next phrase 
starts up like a blue flame darting from obscurity—a 
fantastic measure with wild harmonies that plainly sug- 
gest India as Lakmé’s home. A pathetic wail from the 
flute offsets this elfish interlude; the gloom of the minor 
still hangs over all, and the persistent tremolo of the 
violins becomes oppressive as the perfume of magnolias. 
It is like a forest at midnight. Suddenly the gloom and 
stillness are dispersed by the love-theme of the opera, 


which is in the major key, and consequently has a puri- 
231 


232 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


fying effect. Major and minor are the oxygen and nitro- 
gen of musical atmosphere. | 

A peculiar, rhythmical beating of the triangle accom- 
panies the rising of the curtain, which reveals a luxuriant 
garden enclosed by a bamboo fence. At the back is a 
little river, and a modest dwelling stands on the bank; 
but a pretentious idol at one side characterizes the place 
as a sanctuary. Day is breaking, and as the light increases 
those soft, metallic tones of the triangle penetrate the 
air—like sunbeams. Nuilakantha, a Brahmin priest and 
owner of the dwelling, comes forward with two slaves, 
who open the bamboo gates, admitting a group of Hindu 
devotees, who prostrate themselves before the idol. 
Beneath the radiance of those unceasing triangle tones 
arises a languid prayer, soft as the gray morning mist, 
after which Nilakantha addresses the worshippers. He 
refers to their recent English conquerors, who have “‘dis- 
placed our gods and devastated our temples.” His tones 
mount higher and ring out with religious ecstasy until 
he causes a sudden hush. The music of invisible harps 
fills the air, and as the Hindus again kneel a woman's 
voice, like a clarion call, renders an incantation that is 
rare and wondrous. It sounds like the song of an angel, 
but it is only Lakmé, the Brahmin’s daughter. She comes 
forward and mingles her prayer with those of the people. 
Weird and strange, like the tones of a wild bird, her 
voice soars above the chorus, filling the air with reckless 
trills and soft staccatos. The worshippers arise and go 
out, leaving Lakmé and her father alone. She is a “child 
of the gods,” and her life is dedicated to Brahma. Nila- 
kantha declares it is her pure influence that protects their 
sacred abode from the enemy. He leaves her for a time 
in charge of Mallika, a trusty slave. 


“LAKMB” 233 


When he is gone the music assumes a lighter mood, 
while mistress and maid look about for diversion. After 
removing her temple jewels and placing them upon a 
stone table, Lakmé proposes a row on the river. The 
music of this scene is fraught with a tropical heat and 
midday languor—dreamy, drowsy violin tremolos that 
suggest the drone of bees. The two maidens begin a 
duet whose words— 

“Ah, we'll glide 
With the tide—” 


are set to music that seems to sing itself. It is a fountain 
of melody with flowing rhythm and rippling runs, stac- 
catos like drops of water, and trills that are light as 
bubbles. The singers step into the boat, and we hear 
their song far down the stream, soft as a shadow and 
lovely as a dream. 

After a moment’s silence a new element comes for- 
ward—a party of English sightseers. Their appearance 
in Grand Opera seems to us as much an invasion as their 
presence in India does to the Hindu. After the costume 
of Lakmé, which is all spangles and bangles and gauze 
and fringe, we are astonished to see the modern English 
waistcoats, fashionable bonnets, and trailing skirts. But 
it is all compatible with facts and history. Gerald is an 
officer in the army; Ellen, his flancée, is a daughter of the 
Governor; the other couple are their friends, and Mrs. 
Benson is the chaperone. | 

_ To enter this enclosure, the party have had to force 
an opening in the bamboo. It is evident trespassing, but 
they are too unconcerned to care. ‘Their first rollicking 
ensemble is an interesting evidence of the composer’s 
ability to change from the Hindu to the English type. 


234 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


Instead of weird, uncivilized cadenzas, these are plain, 
Christianlike harmonies, such as we have been brought 
up to and can anticipate. Indeed, this song recalls 
Arthur Sullivan in his best mood. 

After inspecting the idol and various points of interest, 
the party discover Lakmé’s jewels. Ellen admires their 
workmanship, and Gerald proposes to sketch them; but 
Mrs. Benson urges the party away. They all go except- 
ing Gerald, who insists on copying the jewels. He pre- 
pares his sketching materials and is apparently in haste; 
but true to the precepts of Grand Opera, he first sings 
to us a long and beautiful aria about “taking the design 
of a jewel.” 

By the time he has sustained the last high tone through 
five measures, Lakmé and Mallika have finished their 
row upon the river. Gerald conceals himself behind a 
shrub as they enter. The undulating melody of their 
boat-song is played by the orchestra, first softly, then 
with increasing strength, until it ends with a sforzando 
chord as the boat touches shore. 

Lakmé brings forward an armful of flowers as an 
offering to the idol, and she sings a tender little song 
whose pathetic melody belies the text, which constantly 
asserts, “I am happy.” The accompaniment is a simple 
violin arpeggio, swaying back and forth upon the melody 
like a butterfly on a flower. Between the verses it flut- 
ters up in a fanciful cadenza, but soon returns, and, 
alighting on the melody, it continues to sway as before. 

Great is Lakmé’s indignation on perceiving Gerald, 
the intruder. As she goes toward him, her every step is 
emphasized by a resolute chord in the orchestra. 

“Leave at once!’ she commands. “This ground is 
sacred, and I am a child of the gods!” 


“LAKME” 22 


But Gerald has fallen hopelessly in love with the 
pretty priestess, and he loses no time in telling her. No 
one has ever dared thus to address Lakmé, and she is 
incensed at his boldness. She warns him that death will 
be the penalty of his rash trespassing unless he goes at 
once. But Gerald only repeats his sweeping song of 
infatuation. 

At last, moved to admiration by his courage, Lakmé 
ventures to ask by what god is he inspired. Like ripples 
of sunlight are the next measures, wherein he tells her 
that the God of Love makes him fearless. 

Interested in this new deity, the Hindu maiden repeats 
after him the sparkling words and music. She sings 
timidly and a tone too low, but Gerald leads his ready 
pupil into the right key, and they sing together with full 
voice this most fascinating melody. ‘The final rapturous 
tone has scarcely subsided when Lakmé hears her father 
approach. 

Complying with her entreaties, Gerald departs just in 
time for Nilakantha to perceive the broken fence. He 
vows vengeance upon the profane foe who has dared to 
enter here. His followers second the cry, while Lakmé 
stands aside in fear and trembling. 

Tambourines and fifes predominate in the next orches- 
tral prelude. It is a miniature marche militaire, and 
unmistakably English. The second act discloses a public 
square filled with Indian shops and bazaars. It is the 
occasion of a great festival at the pagoda. Merchants 
and promenaders occupy the stage, and their opening 
chorus is all bickering and bargaining. The music is 
very ingenious. A free use of harmonic discords, dazz- 
ling scales that seem to clash with their bass, and 
chromatics that run into each other gives an effect of 


236 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


Oriental extravagance—gay colors upon crumbling walls, 
jewels over rags. 

The chorus continues until a bell announces the begin- 
ning of the festival and time for the venders to disperse. 
They slowly depart and give place to the ballet, without 
which Delibes would hardly be himself. 

It is interesting to note the specialties that different 
composers unconsciously assume. Liszt seemed to revel 
in rhapsodies; while the alliteration, ““Schubert’s Songs,” 
comes uppermost in spite of our knowledge that he wrote 
some eleven hundred other compositions. Bach invented 
more fugues than any one else; while Handel made his 
most lasting impression with oratorios. Symphonies 
and sonatas were the life-work of Beethoven; while 
Chopin had a particular fancy for nocturnes. And Men- 
delssohn! With all deference to his greater works, it 
must be conceded that “Songs Without Words” are 
inseparably linked with his name. Verdi with his tre- 
mendous range of operas had little time for anything 
else. The list could be extended to almost any length; 
but we will only add that Czerny is known for his scale 
exercises and Kullak for his octaves; while Weber, in 
the language of a recent critic, “is famous because he 
invited all the world to waltz!” 

But to return to Delibes and his ballets. The present 
one is divided into several movements—the first being 
slow but of throbbing rhythm, while in the second one 
the melody whirls and spins around like a top. ,It is 
constantly whipped up by the conductor’s baton, and the 
dizzy pace continues until this merry melody bumps 
against a substantial chord. 

After the ballet Lakmé and her father come forward. 
They are disguised as pilgrim mendicants, the better to 


“LAKME” 237 


enable Nilakantha to seek out his foe. It must be under- 
stood that this Hindu thirst for vengeance is a matter 
of religious belief, and the music plainly impresses this 
fact. A weird theme that was prominent in the overture 
recurs as Nilakantha explains that the wrath of heaven 
must be appeased with the blood of a victim. He has 
cleverly surmised that Lakmé was the attraction inducing 
the stranger to trespass on sacred ground. Confident 
that every one will attend this great festival, the Brahmin 
has brought his daughter as a decoy. She plays the role 
of a street ballad-singer, and is at the merciless command 
of her father. He bids her look gay and sing with full 
voice so as to attract a crowd. The orchestra gives her 
the keynote, and then, like a necromancer performing 
wonders with a coin, she executes a cadenza that bewil- 
ders and dazzles the senses. Her tones soar away like 
carrier-birds, and they bring the people from far and 
near to hear the wondrous singing. When a crowd has 
collected, Nilakantha announces that she will sing to 
them the “Legend of the Pariah’s Daughter.” Lakmeé 
sings as easily as she talks. The first phrase is a simple 
little narrative about a maiden wandering at eve in the 
forest, fearless of beast and sprite, for she carries in 
her hand a little bell that wards off evil with its merry 
tinkling. Then follows one of the most difficult staccato 
fantasias in existence, for the voice imitates the tinkle of 
that silver bell. The tones fall fast as raindrops in a 
shower, round as beads and clear as crystal. The com- 
poser shows no respect or reverence for high notes. 
Upper B is given a “shake” and any amount of staccato 
raps, while even high F, that slumbering “spirit of the 
summit,” is also aroused to action. In fact, this aria is 
one of the few that can not be poorly sung. To do it at 


238 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


all argues doing it well. Its difficulties protect it like a 
barricade from attack by mediocre singers. The second 
verse relates how the maiden meets a stranger, who 1s 
saved from the surrounding wolves by the tinkle of her 
magic bell. This stranger was “great Vishnu, Brahma’s 
son’; and since then— 


“In that dark wood 
The traveler hears 
Where Vishnu stood 
The sound of a little bell ringing.” 


Soft and clear as a wood-nymph laughing, those mar- 
velous staccatos again peal forth. 

During his daughter’s performance Nilakantha has 
been scanning the faces around him, but none reveals 
any emotion other than the pleasure of listening. Furious 
that his plan has not succeeded, he bids Lakmé to sing it 
again—“‘Louder!’’ But she has suddenly perceived Gerald 
approaching; and, knowing that if he recognizes her he 
will betray himself, she does not wish to sing. She 
pleads and entreats, but her father is obdurate. So she 
begins with pouting lips and trembling voice. “Sing 
out! admonishes Nilakantha. As Gerald draws nearer, 
Lakmé becomes more and more disturbed. The pretty 
staccatos are all out of place, like blossoms falling to 
pieces. They are flat where they should be sharp, and 
minor instead of major; but her tones, like perfect petals, 
are none the less lovely because detached. Once, twice, 
three times she recommences, always in a higher key. 
Suddenly she utters a musical scream as Gerald comes 
up to her, and Nilakantha exclaims: “Tis he!” 

In the meantime, Gerald hears the fifes and tam- 


“LAKME” 239 


bourines of his regiment and goes to answer the roll-call. 

Nilakantha summons his Hindu followers and informs 
them that he has discovered the foe. This solo with 
chorus of the conspirators is minor, mysterioso, and agi- 
tato; it is the most interesting bass solo of the opera. 
The conspirators go off, leaving Lakmé alarmed and 
disconsolate. Like a faithful hound, Hadyj1, the slave, 
draws near to her and whispers that he has seen her tears 
and heard her sighs: “If you have a friend to save, con- 
fide in me.” His words are parlando, but the orchestra 
illumines them with music clear as a calcium light. 
Lakmé grasps his hand in gratitude, but motions him 
aside as she perceives Gerald thoughtfully returning. 

The hero has left his comrades at the first opportunity 
and retraced his steps to the place where he left Lakme. 
His joy on finding her is portrayed in a musical greeting 
of such unbounded rapture that one key will hardly hold 
it. The ensuing love-duet deserves to rank with the best. 
But Lakmé is more sad than glad, for she knows of 
impending danger. She urges him to flee, and tells him 
of “a little cabin hidden in the forest, quite near by,” 
where he can hide secure from his enemies. This Cabin 
Song is an idyllic refrain, with gentle harmonies that 
picture more than the words. She urges him to follow 
her; but in spite of his infatuation, Gerald realizes his 
duty as a soldier. He dare not go. 

Like dust before a tempest is the succeeding instru- 
mental passage announcing the approach of the great 
procession. The notes, like atoms, are carried forward 
faster and higher, until they come so thick that you can 
not distinguish them. This cloud of music melts away 
before the mighty chant of the Brahmins as they march 
to the pagoda. Their weird incantation fills the air like 


240 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


a trumpet-blast. The greater part of this processional 
music greets our ears familiarly, because it was given 
in the overture. Upon this somber background of Hindu 
harmonies the composer delights in casting gleams of 
Sullivanesque music in the form of passing remarks 
from the English onlookers. The contrast is startling 
as magic-lantern pictures thrown upon the pyramids. 

As the procession marches on, we see Nilakantha 
point out Gerald to the other conspirators, They cau- 
tiously surround him, and at the bidden moment he is 
stabbed by Nilakantha, who then disappears in the 
crowd. On hearing the victim’s cry, Lakmé rushes 
forward. The stage is darkened, for it is evening, and 
the lights of the procession are gone. The Hindu maiden 
finds Gerald but slightly wounded. She calls Hadj1, the 
slave, and then, without further explanation on her part, 
the instruments whisper to us her intention. We hear 
the soothing harmonies of that lovely song about “a 
little cabin hidden in the forest quite near by.” 

The second entr’acte is performed after the rising of 
the curtain. We see an Indian forest, dense of foliage 
and brilliant with flowers. At one side is a hut, half 
concealed by the shrubbery, and near it are Lakmé and 
Gerald, the latter reclining upon a bank, while she watches 
over him as he slumbers. No sound or movement mars 
the effect of a perfect picture, and beneath it all, like 
gold letters spelling out the subject, come the tones of 
that sweet melody of the Cabin Song. The conductor at 
his desk reminds us of an artist at his easel who, with a 
magic brush, traces in tone-colors this beautiful inscrip- 
tion. 

After the entr’acte Lakmé softly sings a slumber-song, 
simple as a child’s prayer and as beautiful. There are 


“LAKME” 241 


only two phrases in it, but they come and go like wander- 
ing thoughts. When Gerald awakes he recalls how he 
was brought here, while Lakmé relates how with wild 
herbs and the juice of flowers he has been restored. Their 
rapturous conversation is interrupted by a chorus from 
without, the voices of young men and maidens on their 
way to a fountain in the forest from whence, it is said, 
if two lovers drink they will always be united. Lakmé 
solemnly explains this beautiful belief and at once pro- 
poses to bring a cup of the water. “Wait for me,” she 
admonishes as she runs out, and we hear her voice mingle 
with the far-away chorus of the other lovers. 

During her absence a comrade of Gerald’s discovers 
his retreat. The newcomer announces that their regiment 
has orders to move on, and that if Gerald does not join 
them he will be dishonored. This visit passes over like 
a modern railroad through an Arcadian temple. Poor 
Lakmé soon discovers the devastation. With charming 
faith she extends her cup of water to Gerald, but at this 
moment he hears the fifes and drums of his regiment. 
Lakmé still offers the cup. “Drink and vow to be mine!’ 
But Gerald does not heed her words, for he is distracted 
with thoughts of duty and honor. She also hears this 
English music. 

“His love is faltering!’ she piteously cries; and then 
with a decision as impulsive as her nature she plucks a 
flower of the deadly Datura and eats it without being 
observed by Gerald. 

She turns to him tenderly and sings of their love— 
a melody so gentle and pathetic that he can no longer 
resist. He picks up the fallen goblet, and touching it to 
his lips vows to love forever. They sing together a song 
of exaltation. 


242 OPERRA: AND TPES STAs 


Suddenly Nilakantha breaks in upon them. He brings 
his followers and would kill Gerald at once, did not 
Lakmé rush between them: “If a victim to the gods must 
be offered, let them claim one in me!” In tones of ecstasy 
she repeats the final phrase of her love-song; but her 
voice soon fails, and with a sudden gasp she falls at 
the Brahmin’s feet—dead. 

Like hot flames reaching up at him from the orchestra 
come the tones of his terrible vow-theme. ‘The victim 
has been offered, but instead of glory, only ashes fall 
upon him. 


CHAPTER SLIT 
pl EA Crib lg 


MGirACCI is the Ltalian word+for ‘clowns,’ a 

decidedly unique subject for Grand Opera. Novelty 
is one of the characteristics of this work. It has already 
achieved fame, altho but a child in age and size, being 
only a few years old and two acts long. Leoncavallo, 
the composer and librettist, has since written another 
opera, “I Medici,” which has found favor in Europe, 
but is still unheard in America. 

“Pagliacci” is startling and intense from the Prolog 
to the clown’s last word, “finita.’ The music abounds 
in surprizes, and altho Leoncavallo has been charged 
with some plagiarism, his work but reflects the influence 
of such recent composers as Wagner and Mascagni. 

The opening orchestral measures are of peculiar 
rhythm, and suggest the spasmodic movement of puppets 
on a string; but this implies no lack of dignity to the 
composition. ‘There are passages that recall the “Flying 
Dutchman,’ and Leoncavallo adopts the Wagnerian 
method of handling his themes; in other words, each one 
has a meaning that is adhered to throughout the opera. 
In this introduction we hear the warm and sunny love- 
music, followed by the somber theme of revenge like a 
shadow after light. Then the puppet-music is hastily 
resumed, to remind us that a clown must laugh and dance, 
however bitter his feelings. 

During the overture a painted and grotesque personage 

243 


244 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


steps before the curtain and announces himself as the 
Prolog. ‘This innovation has prompted some wag to 
remark that “the opera commences before it begins!” 
Mascagni, in his “Cavalleria Rusticana,’ was the first 
to present an unconventional opening, by having a sere- 
nade behind the curtain, but Leoncavallo has outdone 
his rival by having a prolog in front of it. He tells us 
that the play is taken from life, and that in spite of their 
motley and tinsel the actors have human hearts. This 
satisfying song, with its appealing melody and large, 
resounding accompaniment, has never yet failed to arouse 
an encore. With a final signal for the play to begin, the 
Prolog skips out as the curtain goes up. 

The scene represents an Italian village gaily decorated 
for the Feast of the Assumption, an annual fete that lasts 
a week. We see at one side a rough mimic theater, with 
stage and curtain, a temporary structure erected for a 
troupe of players who are just entering the town. There 
are shouting and laughter behind the scenes, sounds of a 
discordant trumpet and a terrible drum, and soon the 
villagers enter, vociferously greeting and surrounding 
a donkey-cart in which are the players. It is a meager 
troupe, consisting of Canio, the master, Nedda, his wife, 
Peppe, the harlequin, and Tonto, the fool. They wear 
fantastic costumes. Camnio beats his big drum, while 
Nedda scatters play-bills, and the villagers think the 
troupe quite wonderful. They are welcomed with an | 
impulsive sweeping chorus that seems to disregard all 
precedent in the matter of keys. These peasants appar- 
ently sing in an ungoverned, unrestrained way of their 
own; but as an Italian’s tattered costume is always pic- | 
turesque, so is this artless music most graceful and 
charming. Canto bows grotesquely on all sides, and again 


oT PAG EPACCT? 248 


thumps his drum to make the people listen as he tells 
them that at seven o’clock the play will begin: 


“You all are invited, 

And will be delighted 
As you witness the woes of poor Punchinello, 
Who revenges himself on a rascally fellow.” 


Camo’s professional music, such as the foregoing speech, 
is made admirably artificial, thin and cheap as tissue 
paper, with uncertain accompaniment and flimsy melo- 
dies. 

When the excitement has subsided, Tonio, the fool, 
offers to lift Nedda from the cart, but Camo boxes his 
ears and helps his own wife down. The people laugh at 
Tomo’s discomfort, and he goes off grumbling. This 
pantomime action and the succeeding bit of dialog are 
accompanied by a rollicking, hurdy-gurdy sort of motif 
in the orchestra. A villager invites the players to a 
drink in the tavern. Canto and Peppe accept, and they 
call Tonio to come along, but he replies from behind the 
mimic theater, “I am cleaning the donkey, and can’t 
come.” The villager laughingly suggests that Tonto is 
only waiting for a chance to court Nedda. Canio takes 
this joke rather seriously, and sings an earnest cantabile 
to the effect that such a game would be dangerous: “On 
the stage, when I find her with a lover I make a funny 
speech and every one applauds; but in life—believe me, 
it would end differently.” This last phrase is adapted 
to the dismal, menacing theme of revenge that was started 
like a germ in the overture. It is still deeply buried 
among the instruments, but its growth is steady from the 
beginning of the opera to the end. Camio closes his song 


246 OPERA SOND Pi STARS 


by assuring all that there is no ground for suspicion. He 
embraces Nedda, and declares that he loves and respects 
her. The hurdy-gurdy music is resumed, and distant 
bagpipes are heard—noises peculiar to a village fete. The . 
chorus sing with much good humor, and are accompanied 
by a charming violin obligato. Then comes the Bell 
Chorus, so named because the church bell calls them to 
vespers. “Prayers first, and then the play!’ exclaim the 
young people as they go out. The delightful turns and 
curves of this bell-song are continued until quite in the 
distance. 

Nedda is left alone, and the orchestra, like a merciless 
conscience, repeats to her Canio’s threatening theme. She 
has a secret that causes her to tremble as she recalls her 
husband’s dark looks and words; but her fears are 
momentary, for the day is bright and so is her heart. She 
sings to the sunshine and the birds in the sky. A gay 
tremolo of the stringed instruments seems to fill the air 
with feathered songsters, and they remind Nedda of a 
little ballad her mother used to croon. This popular balla- 
tella is generally referred to as the Bird Song. There is 
a busy, buzzing string accompaniment, and the melody 
is a gentle, legato waltz movement. The last notes are 
descriptive of a bird’s flight “away, away!” so high that 
the tone seems to soar out of sound as a bird out of sight. 

Nedda turns around, and is surprized to find Tonio 
listening with rapt adoration. He is only a jester, and 
quite ridiculous to look upon; but he nevertheless loves 
Nedda, and tells her so. In this aria, Tonio reveals a 
depth of feeling that is in touching contrast to his painted 
face and comical clothes. Nedda laughs uproariously at 
his confession, and with heartless sarcasm she quotes 
the scherzando music of the prospective play-scene, and 


alae NG UB aMGrOre. 247 


says he must save his fine love-making for the stage. In 
vain Tonto pleads and falls on his knees. She threatens 
to call her husband, and finally snatching up a whip, gives 
Tonio a smart blow on the face. His love is turned to 
hatred, and he vows vengeance for this insult. He is 
very much in earnest, and indeed the composer has given 
him quite a fine vengeance-theme, all his own. It is heard 
groveling and growling among the bass instruments, like 
some disturbed animal. Tonio goes off with frowns 
and threats, but Nedda forgets these in the joy of seeing 
Silvio. As he cautiously enters—scaling a garden wall 
to do so—the orchestra announces in the plainest musical 
phrases that this newcomer is the lover. That theme 
amoroso is unmistakable even had we not been introduced 
to it in the prolog. Throughout this love-scene it is the 
leading spirit, sporting around from treble to bass, now 
in the orchestra, then in the voice; sometimes veiled in a 
minor key or suppressed by top-heavy chords; again, it 
will start to materialize but at once disappear, or when 
most unexpected will push itself forward with impish 
delight. 

The witchery of this music undermines fear and cau- 
tion. The lovers do not notice Tonto’s leering face as 
he overhears their vows and then goes off to bring Canto; 
nor do they hear the stealthy approach of Tonto’s 
revenge in the orchestra. Nedda agrees to elope with 
Silvio, “to forget the past and love forever!’ He has 
started to go, has again climbed the low wall when he 
sings these farewell words with Nedda—just in time for 
Canto to hear them. The husband rushes forward with 
a cry of rage, but he fails to recognize the lover. Nedda 
has warned Silvio to flee, and Canto scales the wall in 
pursuit. She is left for a moment with Tonio, who gloats 


‘248 OPERATAND CUTS Ss avin 


over his revenge. With bitter irony Nedda cries “Bravo!” 
to his success. She calls him a coward and other ter- 
rible names, but the despised jester only shrugs his 
shoulders. 

When Canio returns from his futile chase, he grasps 
Nedda, tortures her and threatens her, but she will not 
tell her lover’s name. He declares she shall die, and with 
these words that bitter revenge-theme for the first time 
blossoms out in the voice part. It is sung and shouted 
by the maddened Canio, while the director’s baton swings 
over the orchestra like a reaper’s sickle, gathering in this 
full-grown theme. Canio draws his dagger, but is for- 
cibly restrained by Peppe, who tries to reason with his 
master. “It is time for the play to begin. The people 
pay their money and must be entertained.” Nedda is 
told to go and dress for her part, while Canto is advised 
to restrain his anger until after the play. He allows him- 
self to be persuaded. The others go off to make ready, 
and he too must soon don the paint and powder. He 
looks sadly at the little theater, and sings a magnificent 
aria that attains the uttermost heights of pathos. He 
must amuse the people while his heart is breaking. He 
dare not weep as other men, for “I am only a clown.” 
Canio goes off sobbing as the curtain descends. 

An intermezzo of much beauty and deep feeling is 
performed by the orchestra between the acts. Its open- 
ing measures recall the funeral march of the “Gotterdam- 
merung’’—dolorous, heart-weary passages that presently 
break away with a nervous energy into the cantabile 
theme of the prolog. This intermezzo is not long, and 
we are again enlivened by the scene on the stage. 

It is evening, ‘“‘at seven o'clock,” and the mimic theater 
is illumined by gay lanterns. The people are flocking to 


“1 PAGLIACCT” 249 


the performance, and they drag forward benches and 
chairs to sit upon. Tonto stands at one side of the little 
stage beating a drum, while Peppe blows the trumpet 
which is still out of tune, and therefore the opening bars 
of this act are exactly like the rest. These good people 
make a great rush and fuss in getting their seats, and 
they sing a simple, hearty refrain about the great event 
of seeing a play. The original and refreshing chorus 
that delighted us in the first act is repeated, and we 
become as excited and eager as the villagers to witness . 
the performance about to take place on that little wooden 
stage with its cheap red curtain. Silvio is among the 
crowd, and he finds a chance to speak with Nedda, as 
she passes the money-box. He arranges to meet her 
after the play, and she admonishes him to be careful. 
After she has collected the money the players go back 
of the scenes. A little bell is rung, and the wonderful 
red curtain goes up. 

The comedy is called “Columbine and Punchinello,” 
and Nedda, who plays the part of Columbine, is dis- 
covered sitting by a table. The room is roughly painted 
and Nedda wears some cheap finery, but the people 
applaud and think it beautiful. The play-music is all 
angular and grotesque, glaring effects thrown on in 
splashes like an impressionist painting. It is admirably 
appropriate, and perhaps the most unique stroke in the 
opera. | 

To return to the action of the mimic play. Columbine 
soliloquizes for a moment about her husband Punchi- 
nello, whom she does not expect home until morning. 
She looks toward the window and evidently expects some 
one else. The pizzicato tuning of a violin is heard 
through the window. The player gets his instrument to 


250 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


the right pitch and then sings a serenade to the “fair 
Columbine.’’ She would fain receive her adorer, but at 
this moment the servant (Tonto) enters. He looks at 
Columbine, and with exaggerated music and ridiculous . 
sighs informs the hearers that he loves her, and now that 
the husband is away he finds courage to get abruptly on 
his knees. Columbine pays no attention to his love- 
making, but she accepts the property chicken that he 
takes from his basket. The village spectators laugh and 
_ applaud. The scene on the mimic stage is next enlivened 
by the lover (Peppe), who climbs in through the window, 
and on seeing the servant promptly takes hold of his ear 
and shows him out of the room. The spectators, of 
course, laugh at this and think the whole play very funny. 
Columbine entertains her lover by giving him a good 
supper. Their harmonious conversation includes a charm- 
ing and graceful gavotte melody that is decidedly the gem 
of this play-music. Its dainty elegance and classic sim- 
plicity are worthy of Bach himself. 

The servant rushes in upon the supper-scene, and with 
mock agitation announces that Punchinello is coming. 
The lover hurries out of the window as the husband 
enters. It is Canto, the real husband, who acts this part, 
and as he sees Nedda at the window he is struck with the 
similarity of the play to the reality. For a moment the 
play-music is droppped and we hear the serious love 
theme of the opera closely pursued by that bitter wail 
of revenge that clings and creeps around it like a poison- 
vine. Canio chokes down his grief and bravely tries to 
go through his burlesque part. A new, jerky little 
melody accompanies the remarks of Punchinello, and it 
would be very gay were it not written in the minor, 
which gives it a touching effect of faint-heartedness. 


paigdepey Gd blll 25 


Punchinello asks Columbine who has been with her, and 
she replies, “Only the servant.’ But Punchinello again 
asks who was the man—“tell me his name.” The last 
words are real, and Canio no longer acts a part. Nedda 
tries to keep up the farce, and the serious themes and 
play-music alternate as the scene goes on. With curses, 
threats, and entreaties Canto tries to learn the name of 
Nedda’s lover, and Silvio, in the audience, becomes un- 
easy; but the other villagers only think it is fine acting. 
When Canto at last buries his face in sobs as he recalls 
how much he loved his wife, the people shout “Bravo!” 
Nedda again tries to resume the play. She forces her- 
self to smile and sing the gay gavotte; but this only 
maddens Canto the more. With tones of fury he declares 
that she shall either die or tell her lover’s name. Nedda 
defies him, and her words are sustained by a distorted 
arrangement of the love-theme, which effect is like seek- 
ing concealment behind a skeleton. The music has 
become as breathless as the situation. Nedda tries to 
escape toward the spectators, but Canio holds her, and 
there follows a piercing shriek. Nedda has been stabbed. 
She falls, and with her dying breath calls “Silvio!” 
Canto turns upon her lover and completes vengeance with 
a single stroke. The orchestra now trumpets forth, like 
the expounding of a moral, that poignant theme whose 
growth and supremacy we have watched. ‘The village 
spectators are still puzzled, and can hardly believe that 
the tragedy is real. Tonio comes forward and announces 
in parlando voice that “the comedy is finished!’ 
“Pagliacci occupies only half an evening, and even 
when the “Australian Nightingale’ and a great tenor 
were in the cast the public always expected ‘some more.” 
New Yorkers long ago became spoiled by the great per- 


252 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


formances given at the Metropolitan Opera House. It 
was taken as a matter of course that “Don Giovanni” 
should be given with Lehmann, Sembrich, Nordica, 
Edouard de Reszke and Maurel, and that “The Hugue- 
nots” should have in its cast two great sopranos and the 
two de Reszkes. We had an idea that a large city like 
New York should expect nothing less, and were not sure 
but the European capitals did better. In point of fact, 
however, when Madame Sembrich used to sing in Berlin 
the Royal Opera House was crowded by the attraction 
of her name alone; and the same may be said of Madame 
Melba in Paris, or Calvé, or any of them. There are 
rarely more than six or seven great prima-donnas in the 
world at one time, and when one of these sings in 
Europe the rest of the company is often mediocre. But 
not so in New York. After “Pagliacci” with one great 
star, “Cavalleria” with another, is the usual program—a 
rather unfortunate combination of operas, for they are 
both so feverishly intense. After the ‘“‘beautiful horror’’ 
of “Pagliacci’s” finale, a contrast might be welcome. 
Gluck’s “Orpheus and Eurydice’”’ is a short opera that 
alongside of Leoncavallo’s work would delight the musi- 
cal epicure. Such an opportunity to study the new and 
the old would surely be beneficial. 


GHAR DT BRIX TV 
BORE nS ANDO HRURY DIC | 


happily united. The beautiful legend belongs to 
the past but Gluck the composer, like Orpheus the musi- 
cian, has brought the departed to life. With gentle 
harmonies he pacified those surrounding Furies, the 
critics, and his creation has attained a lasting place in 
the musical world. Simplicity and sincerity stamp the 
entire composition. The musical thoughts are put down 
in the plainest, straightest way, in strong contrast to the 
old Italian style, whose profuse embellishments remind 
one of ornate penmanship. Gluck lived more than a 
century ago, but his ideas anticipated many of our modern 
formulas. He succeeded in imparting a musical indi- 
viduality to all his characters. 

To enjoy Gluck’s masterpiece properly, the listener 
should present himself with a spirit as gentle as the 
composer. The opera is more idyllic than overpowering. 
Enjoy it as you would a perfect day in some peaceful, 
shaded valley. 

The overture to “Orpheus and Eurydice’’ is not re- 
markable. It bears no theme-feature in common with 
the opera, and its kinship is only discernible in name and 
nature, both opera and overture being devoid of osten- 
tation. 

The curtain rises upon a Grecian landscape that is 
beautiful but sad, for amid drooping willows and solemn 
pines stands the tomb of Eurydice. Orpheus, the discon- 


253 


Or. myth and classic music are in this opera 


264 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


solate husband, is leaning upon the shrine. Not even his 
lute can solace him in this hour of grief. From the 
orchestra a dirge of unrivaled beauty arises like a flower 
from the earth. It is taken up by the chorus and given 
as an offering to the departed. There is something 
mythical about the music as well as the scene. All nature 
seems to join in this lament over Eurydice. Ever and 
anon Orpheus proclaims her name in tones so pitiful 
that— 

“The rocks and rills and surrounding hills 

Feel pity, and are touched.” 


He asks the chorus to scatter flowers upon her grave 
and then leave him alone, for their song but adds to his 
grief. Accompanied by an orchestral ritornelle of Arca- 
dian simplicity, they strew their garlands and then retire. 

The wood-wind and viol follow Orpheus in his soli- 
tary plaint that again reminds us of the voice of nature. 
It is a feminine voice, too, a fact worth mentioning, for 
Orpheus is a contralto role. After vainly beseeching 
high heaven and all the gods to restore his lost Eurydice, 
Orpheus decides to brave the realms of Pluto. He will 
himself wrest her from death’s power. The gods help 
those that help themselves, and now Amor, the god of 
love, comes to his assistance. Amor says he shall descend 
in safety to the lower world, and will find his Eurydice 
among the peaceful shades. He must take his lute, and 
perchance by the power of music he can induce Pluto to 
release her. Was there ever a more charming story for 
an opera! Amor further dictates that while leading 
Eurydice to the upper world he must not look upon her, 
else all endeavor will have been in vain, and death will 
at once claim his own. After promising to obey, Orpheus 


“ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE” 25 


sings a song full of gratitude, with here and there a 
gleam of gladness like flecks of sunlight after rain. His 
final aria is the very noontide of joy, dignified always 
but none the less radiant. Gluck here finds use for 
colorature—plain, classical scales and broken thirds with- 
out any appoggiaturas or even staccatos; but his even- 
tempoed sixteenth notes seem as gay as Rossini’s breath- 
less sixty-fourths. 

The second act is the most interesting. It pictures 
the nether world of Hades. There are vistas of receding 
caverns full of smoke and flames. Furies and Demons 
occupy the stage. According to Gluck, the brass instru- 
ments furnish the music of Hades, in opposition to the 
harps, which belong to heaven. The first tones are 
hurled up by the trumpets like a blast of molten rocks. 
Then like a balm to all the senses, nectar after poison, 
incense after sulfur, day after night, come the next 
celestial harmonies. It is Orpheus with his lute, whose 
harp-tones reach us from afar, as this musician of the 
gods plays his way through the gates of Hades. Fora 
moment the Furies cease their revel, as they wonder what 
mortal dares to enter here. When they resume their 
dance the orchestral instruments blow and bow and bob 
about in a reeling demoniacal medley of scurrying scales 
and staccatos. Again the Furies stop as they see Orpheus 
approaching, and they sing a malediction upon this 
mortal so audacious. They try to frighten him with 
howls from the watch-dog Cerberus, an effect admirably 
represented by the instruments. The music is all fearful 
and threatening, with creeping chromatics shrouded in a 
minor key. 

Orpheus is undaunted; and with enduring faith in the 
power of his music he takes up his harp and sings to 


26 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


them of his love for Eurydice. Entreating their pity, he 
begs them to let him pass; but Cerberus still howls and 
the Furies shout “No!” They threaten him with eternal 
torture, but the inspired youth sings on. No punishment 
they can devise could exceed the grief he already suf- 
fers—such is the burden of his song. Even the Demons 
and Furies can not long resist such tender strains. With 
bated breath they wonder what strange unaccustomed 
feeling steals o’er them, for pity is a new Sensation: 
“The cheeks of the Furies were wet with tears; all Hades 
held its breath.” Three times the wondrous song and 
accompaniment still the shrieks of Pluto’s realm. 
Orpheus is finally allowed to pass. The Furtes and 
Demons hasten to drown their recent emotion in a mad 
revel that surpasses the first one. This demon-dance is 
admirably characterized by the music. It has a rapid 
tempo and a perpetual motion that suggest dancing on 
hot iron. Tremolos rise and fall like puffs of smoke, 
while scales like coiling snakes and staccatos like skip- 
ping imps add to the effect of pandemonium. 

Act III pictures the Elysian fields, the abode of the 
blest where “calm and eternal rest’ pervade even the 
music. The orchestral introduction is saintly, with its 
religious harmonies and classic purity. It is simple, but 
yet so interesting that we can imagine the immortal 
spirits hearing forever and never weary, for classical 
music is always new and always beautiful. The flute 
and stringed instruments perform the great part of this 
Elysian music. White-robed spirits glide about, and one 
soprano voice starts up a happy, flowing melody that 
inspires a chorus of others. It is Eurydice who leads 
this singing of the blessed. } 

There is dancing as well as singing, and during this 


“ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE” 257 


divertissement the instruments weave out a new musical 
fabric. The steady accompaniment and firm legato 
theme are the woof and warp through which, around 
which, and over which a little five-note appoggiatura 
sports like a weaver’s shuttle. It appears four times in 
every measure, but never twice in the same place. 

With wonder and admiration comes Orpheus upon the 
scene. The orchestra continues its blithe harmonies 
while Orpheus sings of the beauteous sight. But not 
even such surroundings can quell his longing for Eury- 
dice. Unlike the Furies, who only granted his prayer 
because compelled by his wondrous music, the spirits of 
the blessed can not see any one suffer. With one voice 
and immediately they tell him to take Eurydice. To the 
strains of softest music Orpheus approaches the various 
spirits. He harkens to their heart-beats, and finally 
recognizes his loved one without seeing her. 

The scene changes to another part of the nether world, 
a forest through which Orpheus is leading Eurydice 
back to earth. A nervous, anxious instrumental passage 
precedes the opening recitative dialog. FEurydice at first 
rejoices over her new-found life, but then forgets all else 
in surprize and grief because Orpheus will not look at 
her. She questions him, entreats him, fears she is no 
longer beautiful, or that his heart has changed. Orpheus 
explains that he dare not look at her, but Eurydice is not 
satisfied. She refuses to go farther, for if he can not 
look at her she does not wish to live. The ensuing duet 
is intense and full of climacteric effects. The voices 
chase each other like clouds before a storm, low down 
and hovering near that sea of sound, the orchestra, over 
~which the conductor rules with his wand like Neptune 
with his trident. 


258 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


Orpheus firmly resists the pleadings of Eurydice until 
she declares that his coldness will break her heart—she 
will die of grief if he does not look at her. Little wonder 
that he flings prudence to the winds and impulsively 
turns to embrace her. 

But no sooner has he looked upon Eurydice than she 
droops and sinks from his arms like a blighted flower. 
Death has again come between them. Orpheus cries 
aloud his grief, and there springs from his heart a song 
of lamentation surpassing any other as a geyser does a 
fountain. “‘Ach, ich habe sie verloren!” is the German 
and “Che in faro” the Italian name of this great song 
that is the standard classical contralto program-piece. 
It is full of sobbing cadenzas and sighing intervals that 
express more than words or deeds. 

Grief at last gives place to desperation: he is on the 
point of killing himself when Amor reappears. The gods 
are again moved to pity by his enduring love, and Amor 
with a touch of her wand revives Eurydice. 

The opera closes with a trio between Amor and the 
reunited pair, an ode to the power of love. It is a sort 
of musical apotheosis. The orchestral accompaniment 
has a steady, revolving movement that might suggest the 
wheel of time tuned and turned in harmony with the 
voice of love. 


CHAP TE Ray x\k 
EMMA EAMES, A QUEEN OF SONG 


CALL at the Hotel Marie Antoinette is a veritable 

eighteenth-century dream. A powdered footman, 
in satin knee-breeches and the full court costume of that 
period, flings open the great glass doors as you enter, 
and another one escorts you around some columns, and 
through some curtains, and down some steps to the main 
reception-room, where you wait while your name is 
announced. 

The Hotel Marie Antoinette is very exclusive, so you 
happen to be alone in this great apartment, with its 
stained-glass dome and carved oak walls; alone, excepting 
for the pretty, soft-voiced maid who is arrayed as were 
the ladies-in-waiting of the Trianon, She assists you in 
removing your wraps, and at the same time talks enthusi- 
astically about the great personage you have come to see. 

“We all here just love her, she is so gracious and 
appreciative of everything we do, and so kind to us. She 
gives us tickets to the opera, and she isn’t at all proud 
or haughty. She often comes in here of an afternoon 
to have tea. There is her corner where she always sits” 
—and the maid points reverentially to a dainty recess 
curtained with tapestries and dreamily illumined by a 
huge pendant red globe. As your glance roams on, you 
find many objects that hold your attention. There are 
historic cabinets of rare value and workmanship, little 
tea-tables beside the various couches, bearing trays of 
antique china and tiny spoons of old silver, all sought 
and selected from the castles and treasure-rooms of 

259 


260 OPH RAVAN ID ATS es Ais 


Europe. There is one dainty solid gold clock that 
belonged to Marie Antoinette and was used in her 
boudoir. Another one which she also owned is jeweled 
with turquoise and garnets. Many valuable miniatures 
of the unfortunate queen and her family are on the desks 
and writing-tables. In one enticing alcove are two rows 
of sumptuous volumes bound in red and gold whose 
mere titles set one to dreaming of court intrigues and 
palace revels. “The Secret Memoirs of the Court” com- 
prise one set of ten books; ten more are devoted to 
Napoleon, and “The life and Times of Louis XV” also 
occupies much shelf-room; while on the center-table is a 
collection of engravings portraying the life of Marie 
Antoinette. 

You feel yourself a court lady by this time; and when 
the powdered dignitary again appears and calls out your 
name in stately tones, you follow him with a sense of 
importance quite pleasant and unusual. You are led past 
more columns and through more curtains, until finally 
he leaves you in a moderate-sized ante-room. Here you 
wait for some moments, expectantly watching the door- 
way by which you entered, when suddenly, on the oppo- 
site side of the room, some folding-doors which you had 
not noticed are flung wide open by unseen hands, and 
behold the queen—of Grand Opera, Madame Emma 
Eames! 

I was calling on Emma Eames at the time of her 
greatest fame. 

It was indeed a right royal vision I beheld; a beautiful 
woman garbed in satin and decked in pearls; she was 
seated on a silken divan. Emma Eames is more than 
beautiful, for together with regular features and soft 
curves she has a strong face and a pose of the head that 


EMMA EAMES 261 


is all determination and force. She is tall and full- 
figured, her hair is dark, and her eyes are very blue. 

She displayed a charming smile as she motioned her 
visitor to a seat near by, and then followed a rapid 
sequence of questions and answers. Madame Eames 
showed a kindly response to her visitor’s spirit of earnest- 
ness, and tried to tell as much as possible in every reply 
she made. 

First in order of interest is the fact that she was born, 
August 13, 1867, in Shanghai, China. There’s a begin- 
ning for you!—enough to crush an ordinary mortal. 
But Emma Eames took it otherwise; and all who know 
of her now must admit that to be born under the Star 
of the East on the thirteenth day of the month is after all 
not bad. As soon as she was old enough to walk she 
left the land of her birth and came with her mother and 
father (who was a lawyer of the international courts) 
to their native home, the city of Bath, in Maine. 

Here she studied music with her mother, going later 
on to Boston and finally to Paris, where she worked with 
indomitable will, studying operas, dramatic action, voice 
culture, and especially French. This last is very im- 
portant for those aiming to sing publicly in Paris, for 
the people there will not tolerate any weakness of pro- 
nunciation. 

When asked if she ever had time for any social plea- 
sures, Madame Eames answered very earnestly: “I have 
never done anything in my life but work. I cared for 
other pleasures just as any girl does, but have always 
foregone them.” 

As a result of this ceaseless work she was fitted for 
_ the operatic stage in two years’ time. 

“It was Gounod himself who selected me to sing in 


262 OPE RAGA NID ae om aks 


his opera ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ He taught me that music, 
and also ‘Faust.’ He was a most lovable old man, so 
modest and, above all, sincere and truth-loving in his 
music. He often said to me, ‘Never degrade music—the 
one divine language on earth—to express a lie.’ When 
teaching a phrase, instead of dictating, as you would 
expect so great a man to do, he always asked, ‘How do 
you feel when you hear that? Sing it as you feel it, not 
what I feel or tell you.’ And he could sing so exquisitely! 
Yes, old as he was, and he had just the smallest possible 
voice, yet it was delightful to hear.” 

Madame Eames’s tones were tender and thoughtful 
as she recalled these reminiscences of her beloved master. 

The number thirteen looms up again in Madame 
Eames’s history as the date of her great début. It was 
the evening of March 13, 1889, in the world’s most 
beautiful opera-house, that the swaying pendants of its 
great chandelier vibrated to the sound of a new voice 
and the marble walls of its ornate halls reverberated the 
sound of a new name—‘‘Emma Eames, la jeune Améri- 
caine.” 

No wonder she made a sensation; she was the ideal 
Juliet, youthful, beautiful, and with a voice of golden 
timbre. 

A more lovely scene and more tender tragedy has never 
been depicted in music than is the last act of this opera. 
The beholder sees in the somber setting of an iron-barred 
tomb the white-clad form of Juliet lying upon a bier that 
is raised like an altar above several steps. There are 
loose flowers still unwithered scattered near the silent 
sleeper, and one pale torch burns restlessly in a brazier 
at her head. No other movement; no change on the 
stage for many minutes. | 


EMMA EAMES 263 


But the listeners, in this pause, are brought heart to 
heart with the gentle composer, who sleeps himself now 
in the Pantheon of Paris. Gounod has enwrapped this 
scene in ethereal harmonies that make one think of Death 
not as the King of Terrors, but as the Queen of Repose. 
The principal melody is a lulling, loving strain that floats 
and fades away like a final “hush”’ to rest. 

The classic purity of Madame Eames’s beauty im- 
pressed itself in these moments perhaps more than any 
other, and the nobility of her voice was revealed in the 
succeeding dramatic climax of the opera, to the fullest. 

In speaking of her début, the singer said that she was 
very nervous, “for, before the public has approved, you 
don’t feel sure that you know anything. After this, 
there is some foundation for your nerves to rest on, 
altho you realize how much there 1s still to learn. But 
I am always nervous even yet, never knowing what trick 
my nerves may play on me. No, my memory gives me 
no anxiety, for I fortunately have a very reliable one. 
If, by any chance, I forget a word on the stage, I know 
my health is run down; then I at once take a rest for 
several days.” 

But Emma Eames has not taken many such rests. 
Young as she was when I called on her, she had already 
sting in twenty-one different operas with unvarying suc- 
cess, in England, France, and Italy as well as her own 
country. When studying a new role she made it a point 
to be accurate in every detail. 

“T have always given great thought to my costumes, 
but once I have studied thoroughly into the period rep- 
resented and feel convinced that my designs are correct, 
_I never change them. When one set is shabby I merely 
have it duplicated.” 


264 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


Little wonder a prima donna has no time for social 
gaiety when you consider all the accessories to her art. 
Aside from the study and actual performing, she must 
take proper exercise for her health, must attend rehear- 
sals, give time to the costumer—and, also, to the many 
interviewers. Madame Eames smiled at this suggestion, 
and said: 

“T don’t mind any of these, but I do dread having my 
photograph taken. We have to put on the entire costumes 
of different operas: wigs, stockings, gloves, slippers— 
everything as tho ready to go on with our lines, and all 
just to stand around in a studio and pose. It is terrible; 
it takes a whole day sometimes.” 

A question about her method of study brought forth 
the fact that at one time she was quite misdirected in the 
use of her voice. 

“T was turned entirely in the wrong direction, and it 
is no exaggeration to say that I have fought the battle 
out step by step and note by note all alone—or, rather, 
in the very presence of the public. When I first appeared 
my voice-control was uncertain; I did not dare take any 
liberties with my tones. I was in constant anxiety, and 
miserable because I had not the power of voice-emission 
that | wanted. I assure you in those days I was some 
times so discouraged that I thought seriously of giving 
up my profession.” 

An astounding assertion this will seem to the thou- 
sands of those listeners who have been enthralled by 
her voice. But Madame Eames was very serious, and 
she added philosophically: “After all, I don’t think one 
can attain anything worth having unless one has suffered 
deeply.” 

In the summer Madame Eames used to take a six- 





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EMMA EAMES 265 


weeks’ vacation in her Italian castle near Florence. I 
was shown a description of this edifice, which reads like 
a page of old history. The sullen gray stone walls are 
six feet thick, and the heavy doors with their great iron 
hinges are all carved by hand, as indeed is all the work- 
manship on the place. The main hall of the castle is sixty 
feet long and twenty-five feet wide. There are four 
massive fireplaces in this one apartment, and a wooden 
balcony reached by a broad stairway runs all around the 
second story of the hall. The ceiling is of carved oak, 
and a reproduction of a famous one in Florence. Every- 
thing is in accord with the traditions of the Middle Ages. 
Madame Eames takes great delight in this castle, and she 
has with her numerous photographs of it. 

Many guests have visited in those halls; but even if 
the gifted owner lived there alone it would always 
seem peopled by a large assemblage, for Madame Eames 
studied much during these vacations, and the mystic 
characters of her repertoire may be said to hover ever 
near. The castle is furnished with rich hangings and 
historic trophies; but most priceless of all should be 
counted the music furnished by her own rare voice. 

It were indeed a pity to fling the stray tones of a great 
voice upon crude walls and cramped quarters; let them 
rather resound and reverberate, and perchance be pre- 
served, by the listening atoms of carved wood and chis- 
eled stone. | 

If the earth is God’s garden and we are the plants that 
grow, then Madame Eames must be likened to a rare 
orchid, radiant in the sunshine of great success, and show- 
ered with all possible blessings. 


CHAPTER XVI 
Hanh MMS AS 
| EN is the opera in which Madame Eames 


appeared most often in this country. No less than 
sixteen composers have used Goethe’s poem as a libretto. 
Many of these works are excellent, and frequently we 
hear excerpts from them in our concerts. But Gounod 
has clad the words in musical raiment of such surpassing 
loveliness that he has almost robbed Goethe of his mas- 
terpiece. At this day, on hearing the name Faust we 
think of the opera simultaneously with, if not before, 
the poem. He has made of it a “Grand Opera” in every 
sense; and yet so abounding in melody that even an un- 
trained ear is captured. 

“Faust” opens with an orchestral prelude that 1s 
somber and subdued—suggestive of the doubt and dark- 
ness that characterize the scene upon which the curtain 
TiSeSey 

Faust, the philosopher, the student, is seated in his 
cell, surrounded by books, parchments, chemicals, skulls, 
and hour-glasses. He has grown old in his delving after 
the mysteries, and even now he has devoted the whole 
night to study. The lamp burns low, and all about him 
is dark and gloomy. He closes his book sadly, and 
exclaims in tones that seem spontaneous, but are, never- 
theless, in accurate rhythm with the orchestra, “In vain!’ 
He does not find ihe knowledge he seeks; his investiga- 
tions are without avail. It seems strange to hear these 
laments sounded by a tenor voice; but this trifling incon- 
gruity of high tones and old age does not last long. The 


character Faust is one of the greatest tenor roles. 
266 


‘PAU SIE | 267 


His soliloquy is presently broken in upon by a chorus 
behind the scenes. It is the song of reapers going to 
their daily work. The morning light streams in at the 
window which Faust throws open as he listens. But sun- 
shine itself is not brighter than that song. It is so joyous 
and light-hearted that the listener fairly inhales the dew- 
laden air of the fields. This first melody in the opera 
is as perfect a morceau for its size as was ever written. 
The solitaire in his cell is also affected by the radiant 
song, and he envies the reapers for their contentment and 
for their youth. Yes, youth is what he longs for. 

Altho Faust has declared his study to be “in vain,” 
he has, nevertheless, acquired the accomplishment of 
being able to call up Mephistopheles (this is the operatic 
name for the great demon), and in his present despair 
he resorts to this power. Mephisto appears without 
delay. Flaming colors and a bass voice are the essential 
attributes of this great character. It seems rather hard 
on our artists who sing to low G that a bass voice is so 
often chosen to represent iniquity; but such happens to 
be the case. Mephistoris invariably clad in red from head 
to toe; exaggerated eyebrows and a fantastic cap with 
unobtrusive horns complete his diabolical appearance. 

In a continuous flow of harmony, Faust infortfis his 
visitor of his wants, and Mephisto promptly states his 
conditions: for the price of his soul after death the 
philosopher shall now be granted his youth. Faust hesi- 
tates at this, whereupon the wily demon causes him to 
behold a vision. A bright light at the back of the stage 
suddenly reveals the lovely Marguerite at her spinning- 
wheel. While the picture lasts there is heard in the 
orchestra a suggestion of onepsof the themes that come 
afterward in the love-scene of the opera; this is accom- 


268 OPE RAVAN DRG ST SEARS 


panied by a soft tremolo on the violins. Forest scenes, 
moonlight, and dreams are very often represented in 
music by a violin tremolo. When the vision passes away, 
Faust is decided, and he drinks the potion Mephistopheles 
prescribes. Presto! The gray hair and beard disappear ; 
the long robe falls off, and Faust is a young man—tall 
and handsome, as a tenor should be. He comes forward 
with an elastic step and sings of youth and its joys, which 
now are his. The music has undergone a metamorphosis 
like the singer. It throbs with a life and vigor which 
were lacking before; this final song of the first act is 
one of the best tenor solos in the opera. 

The second act is chiefly remarkable for its choruses. 
Tt is called the Kyrmess, and represents a street thronged 
with villagers in festive array and mood. They dance 
and sing in honor of their soldiers, who start this day 
to war. The opening chorus is divided among the stu- 
dents, girls, soldiers, and citizens, the latter being repre- 
sented by old men, who come forward and sing their 
delightful refrain in thin, piping voices. Every phrase 
of this first chorus is a surprize, and each one seems 
more fascinating than the preceding. It is all in a rapid, 
tripping tempo, and fairly bubbles over with good humor. 

In this act we are introduced to all the principal char- 
acters. Siebel, the village youth who loves Marguerite, 
is already on the scene, and very soon her soldier-brother, 
Valentine, appears. This is the barytone role, and, while 
not a long one, is still important, and requires a great 
artist, for he has.a splendid death-scene in the fourth 
act. His first solo begins with the words, “‘O sancta me- 
daglia!’ (“O blessed medallion!’’). He sings to the 
token which his sister has just given him at parting. 
He is depressed at the thought of leaving Marguerite 


“FAUST” 269 


alone, for she is an orphan; but Siebel consoles him with 
promises to protect and watch over her. 

Mephisto is the next one to come upon the scene, and, 
in spite of his satanic make-up, the villagers do not 
recognize his “name and station.” He joins in their 
merrymaking, and soon astounds them with his wizard 
tricks and actions. He sings a song about “Gold—the 
lord of the earth.” It is one of the three important solos 
of this role, and is a most characteristic piece. One has 
not the least doubt that he learned it at home! Such 
eccentric, sardonic intervals and rhythm at once suggest 
an unholy origin. 

The peasants soon become so convinced of this stran- 
ger’s evil power that they unanimously hold up the hilts 
of their swords, which are formed like a cross, and before 
this emblem Mephisto trembles. A very strong and in- 
spiring chorus accompanies this move on the part of the 
peasants. 

Faust, the handsome cavalier, now comes forward. 
After a short dialog between this master and servant— 
who we know are under compact to change places in the 
hereafter—the chorus again take possession of the stage. 
They sing first a charming waltz song, which of itself 
seems to start them all to dancing. And then comes the 
celebrated “Faust Waltz,” during which the listener 
should pay most attention to the orchestra. There is 
some singing and much dancing on the stage, but the 
instruments have the most important part. Of this well- 
known composition it 1s unnecessary to say more than 
that it is a splendid waltz. 

Its brilliant rhythm is temporarily diverted by. the 
entrance of Marguerite, who is on her way home from 
church. She carries a prayer-book in her hand, and is 


270 OPERA ANDERS coiks 


dressed in white, which betokens innocence. ‘This cos- 
tume of the hetoine has been considered as imperative 
as the make-up of Mephisto; but Madame Eames care- 
fully studied old Nuremburg pictures and resurrected the 
correct style of that period, which somewhat departs 
from operatic tradition. 

On seeing Marguerite, Faust addresses her as “My 
charming lady,’ and begs permission to walk home with 
her. To which Marguerite very properly replies that 
she is neither “charming” nor a “lady,” and can go home 
“alone.” The question and response last only a moment, 
but the two themes are most exquisitely adapted to the 
words, and should be noted, as they recur later on in 
the opera. Especially lovely are these first notes of the 
soprano; and after so much chorus and bass and orches- 
tra, they soar out like strokes from a silver bell. 

Marguerite goes on her homeward way, and leaves 
Faust more in love than before. Mephisto rejoices, and 
the waltz is resumed. Thus ends Act II. 

And now for the Garden Scene—a veritable bouquet 
of melodies, flowers that never fade! The first aria is, 
indeed, called the “Flower Song,” but only because Siebel 
sings to the flowers he has brought for Marguerite. Siebel 
is the contralto rdle, and therefore always taken by a 
woman. It is a very short part, but as two of the sweet- 
est songs in the opera belong to Siebel, great artists are 
elad to take the character. The short prelude by the 
orchestra before the “Flower Song” is a joy in itself. 
It seems to smooth the brow and quiet the mind, and 
coax the hearer into just the right mood “to be lulled 
by sounds of sweetest melody.” Siebel’s song is indeed 
“sweetest melody’—so much so that a poor singer can 
hardly spoil it. That gentle and caressing theme captures 
the heart every time. 


LA Men 271 


After Siebel has gone, there enter Faust and Mephisto- 
pheles (who gains admission everywhere). The latter 
is in high spirits, and Faust is in love. They look upon 
the garden with different emotions. Faust rhapsodizes 
and is lost in romance; but Mephisto’s more practical 
vision perceives the flowers which Siebel has left at 
Marguerite’s door. He goes off at once to procure a 
present that shall outshine these. During his absence 
Faust sings the “Salve dimora.”’ These are the first 
words of the song, which is an apostrophe to Marguerite’s 
home. “Hail! dwelling, pure and simple,” are the English 
words, but this composition is always referred to by its 
Italian name. 

It is interesting to note the names by which celebrated 
arias are known. Some are designated by the subject, 
as the “Jewel Song,” the “Flower Song.” Then, again, 
some are known by the rhythm, as the “Waltz Song” from 
“Romeo and Juliet,” or the “Polacca from ‘Mignon.’ ” 
Then, there are others whose names only indicate the 
number of voices, as the “Sextet from ‘Lucia,’”’ the 
“Quartette from ‘Rigoletto’ ’’; while many are spoken of 
by their Italian names. The “Salve dimora” belongs to 
this class, and, like the “Jewel Song,” is so celebrated 
that many people who have not heard the music are still 
familiar with the name. The tenor who does not receive 
abundant applause after this aria may feel that he has lost 
his best chance in the opera. 

After the solo Mephisto reenters with a jewel-casket 
under his arm. He places this where ‘Marguerite will 
surely find it, and then the two retire. Now is an expec- 
tant moment, for the soprano holds the stage alone for 
some time, and has in this scene her finest solos. She 
comes in through the garden gate and walks very slowly, 
for she is thinking about the handsome stranger who 


272 OPERA VAND TTS SUARS 


spoke to her in the street. She tries, however, to forget 
the occurrence, and resolutely sits down to her spinning. 
As she spins she sings a ballad called “The King of 
Thule.” It is a sad little song, with strange minor inter- 
vals that make one feel “teary ‘round the heart.” Mar- 
guerite interrupts her ballad to soliloquize again, in pretty, 
recitative tones, about that “fine stranger,’ but she soon 
recalls herself and resumes the song. At last she gives 
up trying to spin, and starts for the house; whereupon 
she sees Siebel’s flowers, which are admired, but dropped 
in amazement when her eyes rest upon the jewel-box. 
After some misgivings, she opens it and discovers jewels 
so beautiful that from sheer joy and delight she starts 
to trilling like a bird. This trill is the opening of the 
great aria, which seems thus to poise for a moment and 
then fly away in the ascending scale which commences 
the brilliant theme. The “Jewel Song”’ is as difficult as it 
is beautiful, and the artist who sings it well deserves 
unstinted praise. 

Before the song is ended, Martha, the matron in whose 
care Marguerite has been entrusted, comes into the gar- 
den, and soon is followed by Faust and Mephistopheles. 
Hers is a necessary but unimportant character, as she 
has no solo and is merely a foil for Mephistopheles. She 
is represented as a very susceptible widow, and he takes 
upon himself the uninviting task of making love to her 
in order that Faust and Marguerite may have a chance. 
The two couples walk back and forth in the garden, 
which is supposed to extend beyond the limits of the 
stage. The courting as done by Mephistopheles is highly 
absurd, and is, in fact, the only touch of humor in the 
opera. 

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GRAVIS? « 273 


Marguerite. Every phrase is full of charming sincerity. 
But it is after the quartet, after the second exit and reap- 
pearance, that we hear their great love duet. The evening 
shadows have lengthened, and “Tardi si fa’ (“It groweth 
late”) are the first words of this superb composition, 
which is indeed like pure gold. It stands alone in musical 
literature as the ideal love music. The only work that is 
ever compared with it is Wagner’s duet in the “Wal- 
kure.”’ Some writer has ventured the statement that in 
this “Faust” duo Gounod has “actually discovered the 
intervals of the scale which express the love passion.” 
The idea is not a wild one nor a new one, for it is known 
that the Greeks held a similar belief, and even prohibited 
certain harmonies and intervals as being too sensuous. Be 
that as it may, there is a subtle charm about Gounod’s 
music that eludes description. When we hear that final 
ecstatic leap from C sharp to high A, a mystic hush and 
spell steals over us. 

There is little more after the duo. Marguerite hastens 
into the house, and Faust is aroused by the unwelcome 
voice of Mephistopheles. The latter’s jesting tone is 
most irritating to the lover. But this dialog is soon 
interrupted by one of the loveliest scenes in the opera. 
Marguerite throws open the blinds of her window and 
looks into the garden, which she believes is now vacant. 
The moonlight falls upon her, and she sings of her love— 
proclaims it to the night. 

Faust, hearing her, rushes to the open window and 
clasps her in his arms, as the curtain descends on this 
dream-picture of love and moonlight and music. 

Act IV comprises three scenes. ‘The first one is short, 
and depicts Marguerite’s grief and remorse. Faust has 
forsaken her, and the faithful Szebel tries to comfort 


274 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


and console. ‘This second solo of Siebel’s is a melody 
of noble simplicity. The beautiful cadence given to the 
twice-repeated name, “Marguerita,” reveals a heart full 
of unselfish love. 

The next scene represents a street in front of Margue- 
rite’s house. There is general excitement and anticipa- 
tion among the villagers, for to-day the soldiers return 
from war. They presently enter, amid much rejoicing, 
and sing their great chorus, called the “Faust March.” 
This march is so popular and well known that people 
who believe they have never heard a note of the opera 
will be surprized to find that they recognize this march. 
It is played by every military band in the country. After 
the chorus the soldiers disperse to their homes and 
friends. Valentine is greeted by Siebel, and the brother 
inquires eagerly about his sister; they hasten into the 
house. ) | 
The stage now is darkened, for the hour is late. Pres- 
ently Faust and Mephisto appear. The latter has brought 
his guitar, and he assumes the privilege of singing a 
serenade to Marguerite, while Faust stands to one side 
in melancholy meditation. Mephisto’s song is more in- 
sulting than complimentary. As a musical expression of 
irony, sarcasm, and insolence, this composition is cer- 
tainly a success. The last three notes of the first phrase 
are a veritable leer. This is the second important bass 
solo, and, when well given, is highly effective, as it 
admits of great variety of expression. But instead of 
bringing forth the object of the serenade, Marguerite’s 
brother appears at the door, and with drawn sword. He 
seeks out Faust and challenges him to a duel. The chal- 
lenge is accepted, and soon they are fighting; but the 
result is inevitable, for Mephisto uses his demoniac 


“FAUST” 276 


power to protect Faust, and so Valentine is wounded. 
The noise of the scuffle has aroused the villagers, who 
hurry in with lanterns and find Valentine dying. Mar- 
guerite rushes forward and falls on her knees beside 
him, but Valentine motions her away. He rises up in 
his death agony and curses her in tones that are like 
balls of fire—declares he is dying because of her sin. 
The villagers look on with awe, while poor Marguerite 
is stunned by these terrible words from her dying brother. 
It is the most tragic moment of the opera. When Valen- 
tine expires, every one kneels as they sing a solemn 
prayer, and the curtain falls. 

We have next the Church Scene, whose sublime music 
displays Gounod’s special forte. He is perhaps greater 
as a composer of ecclesiastical music than anything else. 
His genius finds most congenial soil in religious themes, 
and therefore is this church scene with its mighty 
choruses and organ interludes truly grand. We hear 
the organ tones even before the curtain rises, and when 
it does Marguerite is discovered kneeling on a prayer- 
chair, apart from the other worshipers. She tries to 
pray and find comfort in her despair, but an awful voice 
mocks her endeavors, and that voice is MepMistopheles, 
who comes to her now in his true character. He is near 
her, but she can not see him, while he terrifies and tor- 
tures her with fearful prophecies. Vainly and despe- 
rately she strives to follow the familiar service, but she 
can hear only the demon’s voice. It draws ever nearer, 
and its words increase her terror. At last with a cry 
of anguish Marguerite falls down unconscious. Mephis- 
topheles stands over her, and his face beams with satanic 
glee. 

True to Goethe’s story, Marguerite becomes insane 


276 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


from grief and kills her child. The last act finds her in 
prison. Once again she is clad in white. Her hair hangs 
loose upon her shoulders, and chains bind her wrists. 
She is sleeping on a straw pallet as the curtain rises, 
and Faust enters with his companion. They have come 
to release the prisoner. But when she is aroused and 
urged to flee she pays little heed to their request, for she 
does not recognize them. But the sound of Faust’s voice 
recalls to her that first meeting so long ago, when he 
said, “My fair lady, may I walk with you?” She sings 
again that charming phrase as we heard it in the second 
act; but it is now sounded with a pathos and simplicity 
that bring tears to our eyes. 

She presently perceives Mephistopheles, and the sight 
fills her with terror. She falls on her knees and invokes 
the angels of heaven to pardon and receive her soul. The 
fervor of this prayer knows no bounds. A veritable 
religious ecstasy throbs through the music. The theme 
is broad and free, and seems to burst asunder every bond. 
It suggests a glory and splendor that are celestial. Ever 
higher and grander it grows. Marguerite is now stand- 
ing with upraised arms; and altho Faust and Mephisto 
join in the singing, our attention is entirely riveted by 
that white-robed supplicant. The peerless theme is re- 
peated three times, and always higher than before. Those 
soprano tones finally reach an atmosphere so clear and 
rare that they seem to carry the soul of Marguerite with 
them. The last high B soars up to heaven like a disem- 
bodied spirit. 

It matters not what occurs after this. We have a 
dim consciousness of Marguerite falling down, of some 
words of lament from Faust; but for us the opera was 
ended with that last supernal note. 


CEN RAE Rav 
GW EGRel EER 


ADAME EAMES was the first prima donna 

whom America heard in “Werther’—a work 

which in Paris ranks as Massenet’s best. But she has 

not sung it often, because, as she says, “It all lies in such 

a low key; and to sing always in one place is hard on 

the voice.’ Then she adds, “But the love-music of 
Werther is beautiful.” 

Goethe’s love-stories find favor with French com- 
posers. Massenet has accomplished with ‘Werther’ 
what his predecessors have done with “Mignon” and 
“Faust.” His work is recent and, in a way, unique. 
The story is not dramatic, and there are no regulation 
operatic characters—no gods, no kings, no peasants, 
gypsies, fairies, demons, villains, slaves, soldiers, and 
not even a chorus. The scenery is also unconventional ; 
not a palace, nor a mountain, nor a dungeon in the whole 
play. 

The dramatis persone of “Werther” are taken from 
“ye lower middle classes,’ and they are graced with 
such names as Schmidt, Johann, Sophie, and Charlotte. 
We find it agreeable and gratifying to see our own com- 
mon selves and every-day emotions elevated to the regions 
of classic music. 

It is easy to understand why Massenet was attracted 
by the story, in spite of its dramatic weakness and lack 
of stage effects. It offers unbounded opportunities for 
love-music. Most opera composers must content them- 
selves with one rousing duet and perhaps a solo or two; 
but in this story the hero sings of love from first to last. 

277 


278 OPEBRAVAND TT Tiss) Ak? 


The prelude to this homely opera is like the blessing 
before a meal. It is peaceful and soothing, and might 
be called a pastorale. 

As the curtain rises we are greeted with the chatter 
and laughter of childish voices: two innovations at one 
stroke, for real children and real laughter have never 
before held a place in Grand Opera. This first scene of 
“Werther” forms a pleasing summer picture. We see 
the garden and terrace of a simple country house, whose 
owner, the town bailiff, is seated upon the veranda sur- 
rounded by his six children, to whom he is teaching a 
Christmas carol. He seems to be teaching them, but in 
point of fact he is teaching the audience this charming 
melody, which must be kept in mind, for it recurs at 
various intervals during the opera. So the children sing 
at first very loud and badly. The good-natured bailiff 
shakes his head and stops his ears. After a second 
attempt the song goes smoothly, and during this per- 
formance Schmidt and Johann enter the garden. These 
are some tavern friends of the bailiff, who lend variety 
to the music by giving occasion for the inevitable drink- 
ing-song. They compliment the children and inquire 
after Charlotte. “She is dressing for a ball,’ answers 
Sophie, the bailiff’s second daughter. 

We might tire of this plain conversation and the buffoon 
manners of Schmidt and Johann, but the accompanying 
music is of absorbing interest. Massenet makes much 
use of counterpoint, which has been broadly defined as 
the art of combining melodies. A crude but familiar 
example is that wonder-inspiring piano performance of 
“Yankee Doodle” in one hand with “Fisher’s Hornpipe”’ 
in the other. It is interesting to follow the various 
themes in Massenet’s orchestra. Sometimes a bit of the 


“WERTHER” 279 


Christmas carol combines with the gruff, reeling song of 
Bacchus, which, in turn, is blended with a broad and 
noble theme that always appears in connection with the 
name of Charlotte. Another theme, that might be char- 
acterized as severely intellectual, asserts itself whenever 
the conversation turns upon Albert, her absent fiancé. 

Schmidt and Johann go off arm in arm, lustily sing- 
ing, “Vivat Bacchus.” 

Sophie enters the house, while the bailiff retires with 
the children to an alcove on the veranda, where we see 
him patiently rehearsing that Christmas carol, word for 
word. 

The music now undergoes a transition, like a dreamer 
turning in his sleep. ‘There are harp-chords, arpeggios, 
and trills written soft and “dim.” 

A richly clad traveler enters the garden, looking about 
him with evident emotion. It is Werther, returned after 
years of absence, to his native village. 

“T know not if I dream or wake,” are his first words, 
while the instruments recall that pastoral motif of the 
prelude. Birds and trees and the limpid brook are all 
apostrophized in word and tone, until, with a sunburst 
of rising chords, there 1s introduced a new and radiant 
theme, eulogizing— 


“All nature, full of grace, 
Queen over time and space” ; 


while under the spell of his emotions—for Werther is a 
poet and a dreamer—there comes to him, like the song 
of angels, that blessed Christmas carol which the chil- 
~ dren are singing softly and with perfect rhythm. 

The already familiar Charlotte-theme announces the 


280 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


heroine’s entrance. The girlish costume of this bourgeoise 
character are unusually becoming to Madame Eames; 
they present her in quite a new light, and her first 
entrance gives a pleasing surprize to the audience. 

She is embraced by the children, who love Charlotte 
dearly, for she is to them both a sister and a mother. 
Regardless of her best gown, she now goes to a buffet 
on the veranda and distributes slices of bread and butter. 
This scene has prompted the epithet, “bread-and-butter 
opera.” 

In the meantime Werther is welcomed by the bailiff 
and introduced to Charlotte. Sounds of gay music 
accompany the arrival of guests who will take Charlotte 
to the ball. This festive music is unique. The bass 
presents a defiant repetition of one chord that is stub- 
bornly out of harmony with the bright melody above, 
like old age shaking his head at youthful gaiety. 

It is decided that Werther shall go along to the ball. 
The dance-theme is resumed, and the merry party go out. 
Sophie takes the children into the house, and the bailiff 
goes off to the tavern, humming on the way that comical 
drinking-song. 

The stage grows darker, the music softer, and we hear 
a fragment of the Albert-theme. It is like seeing the 
shadow before the person, for Albert soon enters. He 
has returned unexpectedly. Sophie rushes out to greet 
him, and she regrets that Charlotte is absent. 

Before going into the house Albert sings to the night 
winds of his love, and hopes that Charlotte on entering 
the garden will discover the thoughts that he leaves. 

The orchestra toys with this melody for a time, but 
then is diverted by memories of the ball music. Snatches 
of the bewitching strain flit by in different keys, like 


“WERTHER” 281 


belated guests in vari-colored dominos. They are faint 
as fantoms—a gentle swaying of the violins, a touch of 
the harp, and then they vanish. There is a pause. The 
moon has appeared, and the humble garden seems trans- 
formed into a fairy-bower. 

Like the spirit of a dream is the melody now arising. 
Ethereal in its beauty but supreme in power, it rules 
over the entire opera. This is the love-theme. We are 
not surprized to see Werther and Charlotte enter arm in 
arm. It is a familiar situation: he is “seeing her home’ 
from the ball. And arrived at their destination, they 
linger at the gate, as couples have done before and since. 

Charlotte is of a serious nature, and their talk is never 
light. She tells of her mother and the terrible experience 
of losing one so dear. “I believe that she watches over 
me and knows when I do her bidding.” Charlotte’s tones 
are full of pathos, and she becomes abstracted in her 
memories, while Werther, enraptured by her goodness 
and beauty, gives utterance to the feelings that enthrall 
him. The music grows stronger and higher, until it 
breaks forth in a resounding reality of the love-theme. 
Over an accompaniment of throbbing chords this superb 
melody sweeps by like a meteor passing the earth; and 
during this luminous transition we hear the voice of 
Werther, “Charlotte, I love thee!” There follows a 
hush, and then a chilling, awful discord. Some one is 
calling from the house, “Albert has come home!” Char- 
lotte staggers at this news. She explains that Albert 
is her betrothed—it was her mother’s wish. “May she 
forgive me, that for one moment at your side I forgot 
my vow.” Charlotte goes up the steps; she turns once, 
but then hastens inside. Werther buries his face in 
anguish at the thought of her wedding another. 


282 OPERMIAND ED SISTARST 


When next the curtain rises, several months have 
elapsed. The elm-tree foliage is denser and the situations 
of the drama have changed, but love and music remain 
the same. 

Schmidt and Johann are discovered sitting before the 
tavern “of a Sunday afternoon.” ‘Their good-natured 
song of Bacchus greets us like an old friend. The church 
and parsonage are in plain view, and a solemn choral 
from within alternates with the drinking-song without. 
The village to-day is en féte in honor of the pastor’s 
golden wedding. | 

The serious and thoughtful Albert-theme marks the 
entrance of Charlotte and Albert, who are married. They 
loiter on their way to church and sit down on a bench 
under the trees. Very calm and tender is the music of 
this little scene between husband and wife. The organ 
resounds the chords of a beautiful hymn, at which sum- 
mons Charlotte and Albert join the other worshippers. 

Werther has been observing the pair from a distance. 
When they are gone he comes forward, exclaiming with 
erief and bitterness, “Wedded to another!” The tem- 
pestuous chords of the orchestra clash into the holy har- 
monies of the organ. Jagged fragments of Werther’s 
first song of admiration depict his shattered joy. As one 
holds together the pieces of a broken vase, sadly recalling 
its lost loveliness, so does the orchestra again build up 
that old theme in all its beauty while Werther sings of 
what might have been. Rebellious at fate he cries out: 
“It is I—I alone whom she could have loved!’ The suc- 
ceeding aria is reckless as a steed galloping to his death. 


It plunges from high tones to a sob, and the singer, fling-. 


ing himself upon a bench, buries his face in his arms. 
Albert discovers Werther thus despondent, and, sus- 


“WERTHER” 283 


pecting the cause, he questions him; but Werther des- 
perately disclaims his love for Charlotte. This interview 
is musically serious and sad. But suddenly the orchestra 
gives us a new key, a new melody, a sprinkling of lithe- 
some staccatos falling like a shower of apple-blossoms. 
With a smile on her lips and flowers in her hands, Sophie 
enters, unconscious of the surrounding turbulent emo- 
tions. She gaily announces that they intend to dance, 
and that Werther must join her in the minuet. Observ- 
ing his somber expression, she bids him cheer up, for 
to-day— 

“All the world is gay! 

Joy is in the air!” 


This song is the most popular one of the opera. It is 
bright and light, and full of fluttering phrases—a veri- 
table song of spring. 

When Albert and Sophie are gone, Werther cries out 
with explosive candor, “I told a falsehood!’ He 1s 
wretched beyond compare. He can not cease loving, and 
he dare not cease lying. 

Charlotte comes from the church, and, greeting him 
kindly, asks if he, too, is going to the parsonage. They 
speak lightly but feel deeply, as is evidenced by the music. 
That wondrous love-theme softly surrounds them like 
the magic fire of the Walkure. The harmonies mount up 
from the instruments like flames from living embers. A 
spell is upon them. Charlotte stands mute, while Wer- 
ther sings of that evening when he touched her hand and 
looked into her eyes for the first time. Softly and slowly 
the beautiful melody disappears, giving place to a dif- 
ferent chord and motif: “Albert loves me—and I am 
his wife!” Charlotte has recovered herself. She entreats 


284 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


Werther to turn his heart elsewhere: ‘Why do you love 
me?’ This hero seems to understand himself, for he 
answers: ‘““Ask a:madman why he has lost his reason!” 
Then Charlotte urges him to go away for a time, say 
until Christmas. “Yes, until Christmas—good-by, my 
friend!’ She leaves before he has time to refuse. 

Now follows a musical adaptation of Goethe’s very 
poetical and ingenious plea for suicide. 


“Do we offend Heaven in ceasing to suffer? 
When a son returns from his journey before the 
expected time, far from feeling resentment, the 
father hastens to greet him; and can it be that our 
heavenly Father is less clement?” 


During this soliloquy we encounter strange chords in 
the orchestra. Strains of a gay minuet play upon these 
tragic tones like rainbow colors on the angles of a glacier. 

The dance has begun, and Sop/ie, appearing at the 
parsonage door, tells Werther, that she is waiting. He 
walks away. 

“You are leaving! But you will come back?’ cries 
the disappointed Sophie. 

“‘No—never! Good-by!” and Werther turns down 
the road out of sight. Either for the lost dance or the 
lost partner, Sophie bursts into tears. Albert and Char- 
lotte find her thus, and between sobs she tells them how 
Monsieur Werther has gone away forever. Charlotte 
stands rigid, while Albert exclaims to himself: ‘He loves 
my wife!’ The gay assemblage within the parsonage 
has no knowledge of this brewing tragedy, so the minuet 
continues till the curtain descends. 

The prelude to Act III is somber and depressing. It 


“WERTHER” 28s 


clings to the harmonies of that last scene between Char- 
lotte and Werther—the exile motif. 

The curtain’s rising reveals Charlotte sitting at her 
work-table, lost in thought while her needle plies. 

The soft light of the lamp illumines a petit salon; the 
hour hand of the clock points to the figure five, and the 
libretto tells us it is the 24th of December. The subject 
of her thoughts is Werther—always Werther! Why can 
she not banish him from her mind as she did from her 
presence? The question is not hard to answer, for we 
learn that he has been writing to her. As tho drawn by 
a magnet, Charlotte goes to the desk and reads again the 
letters she fain would forget. Moaning minors like a 
winter wind accompany the perusal of these sad and 
poetic epistles. Werther writes: “If I never return, 
blame me not, but weep instead, for I shall be dead.” 

Terrifying tremolos accompany the tragic theme that 
is now let loose in the orchestra like a strange, wild 
animal in the arena. It preys upon the emotions, gnaw- 
ing at the heart of every listener. Massenet delights in 
startling contrasts. 

While Charlotte is grieving over these missives, a 
happy voice greets her, ‘“Good-day, sweet sister!” It is 
Sophie, come with an armful of toys and a heart full of 
melody. She is accompanied by the gay staccatos of 
her “Spring Song.” Charlotte hastily conceals the let- 
ters; but tears are not so easily disposed of. Perceiving 
the reddened eyes, Sophie tries to cheer her sister by 
singing of “Laughter, the light of the heart.”’ The gaiety 
of this music, with its sparkling scales and tripping 
tempo, is infectious. But tears again gather in Char- 
_lotte’s eyes when Sophie mentions the name of Werther. 
The little sister is very sorry; but Charlotte says never 


286 OPERAVAND HESESTARS 


mind, weeping does one good. “The tears we do not 
shed fall back upon the heart, which, altho it is big, is 
very frail and can break with the weight of a tear.” 

The music to this sentiment is a tone-poem well 
worthy of the text. It is written in a low key. Joy 
mounts upward on the scale, but grief weighs down. 

Sophie goes out, and all the bright music with her. 
Falling upon her knees, Charlotte prays for strength. 
With superb crescendos and plaintive diminuendos this 
heart-wrung supplication mounts heavenward. 

The music now swells out with sudden impetus and 
the parlor door is brusquely opened. Charlotte turns 
around and exclaims with startled tones, “Werther!” 

He is leaning against the door as tho wearied in mind 
and body. “I tried not to come—mais me voici!” 

With forced calm Charlotte bids him welcome. He 
looks with fond memory upon the old piano and familiar 
books. They talk of casual things, and incidentally 
Charlotte calls his attention to the poems he was translat- 
ing when he left. 

The music of this scene has been unnaturally tranquil ; 
the gentle Charlotte-theme and another phrase, graceful 
and simple as a nursery rime, are used with touching 
effect. But with the mention of these poems sudden 
emotion breaks through the constraint. Werther turns 
to the unfinished verse and reads aloud. 

The ensuing scene is dramatically not a new one. In 
“Francesca da Rimini” the heroine is wooed and won 
by the reading of a poem; but added to the charm of 
verse we here have the enthralling power of music. In 
both instances the reading ends with—a kiss. 

The succeeding aria is a song of soaring ecstasy about 
“ce premier baiser.’ Werther proclaims that “only love 


“WERTHER” 287 


is real!’ But Charlotte suddenly recoils at her weakness, 
and rushing to a side door, exclaims: ““We must never 
meet again! Good-by—for the last time!’ and dis- 
appears. 

The music has assumed a dolorous strain that vividly 
portrays the pathos of her last words. Werther calls 
for her to come back. He knocks at the door, but is only 
answered by the tragic chords of the orchestra. They 
are furious and fearful, but, strange to say, they ade- 
Gudienmexpress, an awful silence.) "So. bet!’ vat dast 
exclaims the sorrowful Werther. Crashing chords whirl 
riot in the orchestra as the hero hastens away. 

The stage is vacated, but the music tells us whom next 
to expect. The Albert-theme, easily recognizable, tho a 
trifle harsher than before, comes forward to preside over 
the finale of this act. 

Albert steps into the room, surprized and preoccupied. 
He has met the distracted Werther at the front door, and 
here finds Charlotte locked in her room. In answer to 
his authoritative call she comes forward looking pale and 
frightened. He questions her, but she answers evasively. 
At this moment a message is handed to Albert by a 
servant. It is from Werther: “I go on a long journey. 
Kindly lend me your pistols. Farewell.” Charlotte knows 
the import of these words, but dare not speak. Perhaps 
Albert also knows. He coldly bids her hand the weapons 
to the servant. Mutely and slowly she goes to the case 
and delivers the contents as she was bid. That theme 
in the orchestra continues quietly to move back and forth 
like a person keeping the death-watch. When the servant 
has gone, Albert strides angrily out of the room. Char- 
- lotte stands for a moment immobile. The music also 
seems to stand still; then a sudden impetuous outburst of 


288 OPERA VAND TTS ts LARS 


the instruments coincides with her decision. From 
highest B to lowest F octaves and chords are hurled 
together, as Charlotte, seizing a mantle, rushes to the 
door. ‘Pray Heaven I may not be too late!’ 

We follow Charlotte in her flight. The scene changes 
to a view of the village. It is Christmas eve, nearing 
midnight. The snow is falling in wild gusts, but through 
a rift in the clouds the moon looks down upon the peace- 
ful town. Roofs and trees are covered with snow, while 
from some of the windows household lights are gleaming. 
The church, too, is lighted, but the moonlight and the 
snow are most prominent. Even these, however, are not 
so important as the music. More chilling than hail or 
snow are those sudden blasts of chords and octaves fall- 
ing one on top of the other, down, down until they join 
and melt into the steady tremolo of the bass. Finally, 
like Death seated on a tombstone, the terrifying tragic 
theme again looms up. 

During this introduction the winter scene on the stage 
remains the same. The snow continues to fall, and we 
hear it in the orchestra—a steady movement of double 
thirds over which play varying melodies like Christmas 
lights. The musicians turn their leaves once, twice, three 
times, but still that slowly palpitating accompaniment 
goes on. There is something appalling in this persistency. 
What was at first delightful becomes oppressive, for we 
are somehow reminded that falling snow can bury the 
living and hide the dead. 

A distant bell sounds the hour of twelve. Fierce winds 
arise, and we see the muffled figure of a woman strug- 
gling her way against the gale. The tempest is again 
heard in the orchestra. Breathlessly we watch the hero- 
ine’s slow progress, and wonder if she will be too late. 


“WERTHER” 289 


The scene changes to a little room strewn with books 
and papers. A lamp on the wooden table casts sickly 
rays upon the surroundings, but we can plainly see a 
figure reclining on a chair near the window. It is 
Werther, pale and unconscious. Charlotte rushes in, and 
at sight of the dying man is beside herself with grief. 
She calls him by name, and the sound of her voice revives 
him. He asks her faintly to stay near him, to pardon 
him and love him. While he speaks there arises from 
the orchestra, like the dim visions of a dying man, that 
first love-theme so full of summer gladness. Charlotte 
sings to him the words he has longed to hear. This last 
love-song ends in a whisper. The instruments, too, seem 
hushed with that mysterious silence of Christmas night. 
We can see through the window the bright moonlight, 
for the storm has abated. 

Suddenly the dying man looks up as sweet music 
metects his ear— 


“Noel! Noel! Noél! 
Proclaim the wondrous birth! 
Christ the Lord has come to earth!” 


It is the happy children’s voices singing their Christmas 
song in the church. A merry carillon of the instruments 
accompanies the familiar tones of Sophie’s high, bright 
voice in the distance— 


“All the world is gay! 
Joy is in the air!” 


‘This startling contrast of life and death has never been 
more beautifully portrayed. 


290 OPERATAND AtoeS EARS 


Werther sadly smiles, murmuring that it is his song 
of deliverance. He dies in Charlotte's arms. She cries 
out, despairing, inconsolable, “It is finished!’ Death is 
in the orchestra, in the darkness, in the ensuing silence. 
But suddenly, like “the morning in the bright light,” 
those far-away voices again sing— 


“Noel! Noel! Noel!” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


CALVE AND “CARMEN” 


66 EAR Calve in ‘Carmen’—and die,” is the motto 

H. which heralded this singer’s first visit to 
America. Our curiosity was greatly aroused, for we 
thought we knew all about “Carmen.” We clung to the 
traditions of our own Minnie Hauk who had created 
the role, and could imagine nothing better than a trim, 
dainty Carmen with high-heeled slippers, short skirts, 
and a Spanish mantilla. 

Great was our amazement on that memorable night 
when we beheld for the first time a real cigaret 
girl of modern Spain. Here was a daring innovation 
that at once aroused attention and new interest in the 
opera. This Carmen wore high-heeled slippers, ’tis true, 
‘but somewhat worn down and scuffed, as they must be 
if she was in the habit of running over the cobble-stones 
of Seville as she ran to the footlights on her first entrance. 
And her skirts, far from being well-setting and so short 
as to reveal shapely ankles and a suspicion of lace pettt- 
coats, were of that sloppy, half-short length, which even 
the street-girls of London wear to-day. But most 
~ astounding of all departures was the absence of any sign 
of a mantilla! How could one be Spanish without a. 
mantilla—any more than one could be Russian without 
fur! But this Carmen had an eye to color—she could 
hardly be a coquette otherwise—and in her hair at the 
nape of her neck was deftly tucked a large crimson 
flower. Her hair, however, was carelessly pinned, and 
even tumbled down later on—a stroke of realism which 


was added to by the way she coiled it up and jabbed it 
201 


a 


292 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


into place again. A strange performance to behold in a 
Grand-Opera setting; and we might have resented such 
defiance of the code had we not been forced to admit that 
it was all absolutely correct, and this Carmen was more 
truly Spanish than any impersonation we had seen. Even 
her voice seemed tropical; such richness of tone, warmth, | 
and color had never before been combined in the singing 
of Bizet’s opera. Had Bizet only lived to this day he 
might have died happily, for Carmen, the child of his 
brain, found no favor with the public when first intro- 
duced. 3 

After the surprize of Madame Calvé’s costume and 
then of her voice, New Yorkers awoke to the fact that 
Carmen had never before been acted. This performance 
was a revelation, a character study of a creature who 
recklessly holds that it is right to get all the pleasure you 
can, and wrong not to have what you want. 

It was the evening after one of these great “Carmen”: 

performances when a knock at the prima donna’s door 
elicited the Parisian response—“Entrez.’ Mme. Calvé’s 
salon was brilliantly lighted and richly furnished, but it 
seemed only a somber setting to the singer’s radiant self. 
Not that she was gaudily gowned; on the contrary, her 
dress was simple, but her personality, her smile, her ani- 
mation, are a constant delight and surprize. 
Mme. Calvé is thoroughly French, and thoroughly 
handsome, and appears even younger off the stage than 
on. She is tall and of splendid figure; her complexion 
is fresh and clear, with an interesting tinge of olive, and 
her eyes are as black as her hair, which was arranged 
very pompadour. 

Mme. Calvé seated herself with a half-serious, half- 
amused expression, as tho to recite a lesson, and an- 





EMMA CALvVE 





CALVE AND “CARMEN” 293 


nounced that she was ready and willing to answer “toutes 
les questions que vous voulez.’ This seemed a golden 
opportunity to learn all there is to know about singing. 
It stands to reason that the most direct and easy method 
of acquiring this art is simply to ask one of the greatest 
singers of the day how she does it. Some one found out 
how to play the piano by asking Rubinstein, who said— 
“All you have to do is to select the right keys and strike 
them at the right time.” 

So, with this idea in view, Mme. Calvé was asked first 
what she thinks of when she steps before the public— 
her voice, her acting, or the music? 

“T think of Carmen,’ she answered, “if that is the 
opera. I try to be Carmen—that is all.” 

_ When asked if she practises her voice much during 
the day, Mme. Calvé shook her head. 

“No—not now. You see, I must have mercy on my 
poor voice and save it for the evenings when I sing. 
Formerly, of course, I practised every day, but never 
more than an hour with full voice. Yes, an hour at one 
time, once a day, that is all. But I studied much besides. 
At first I wanted to be an actress, and for this purpose 
gave much time to dramatic art. My mother was a fine 
musician; she is the one who urged me to sing.” 

“What did you practise when you first began with the 
voice ?—single tones ?” 

Mme. Calvé looked thoughtful—she could naval re- 
call, until a friend who was present suggested—“‘it was 
rather intervals and arpeggios, n’est-ce pas?’ then the 
great Carmen quickly nodded. 

“Yes—you are right; intervals at first, and not until 
later on, sustained tones. I do not consider single sus- 
tained tones good for the beginner.” 


204 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


In reply to a question about breathing, she answered: 

“Oh, yes; all singers must practise special exercises 
for the breath. What else did I do? Well, I hardly 
remember. I never had any trouble with my throat or 
my tongue,—no, I never thought much of these.” 

She was then asked, by way of suggestion: 

“Did you ever hum in your practise?’ 

Now her face lighted up. 

“Yes,” she replied, all animation, “and, do you know, 
that is splendid! I do it a great deal even yet, especially 
for the high tones like this,’—and there and_ then, 
without moving a muscle, like a conjurer materializing 
a flock of birds, she showered upon us a bevy of hummed 
tones. They were soft, of course, but clear and perfect 
as tho made with full voice, and you wanted to wrap 
each one in cotton and take it home. But—they were 
gone!—and the singer went on speaking. 

“With Mme. Marchese I used to hum a great deal. 
Yes, it is an excellent practise, for it brings the tone for- 
ward right here,” and she touched the bridge of her nose. 

Mme. Calvé is so genial and vivacious in conversation 
that you are led to forget her position and wonderful 
attainments. But now and then it flashes over you that 
this is the woman whose manifold art has astonished two 
continents; a singer who makes any role she undertakes 
so distinctly her own that other singers hardly dispute 
her right to monopolize it. Not only is her Carmen a 
creation; Ophelia, too, she has imbued with new interest, 
introducing many startling voice and breath effects. 
Throughout all the mad scene she calls into use an ‘“‘eerie- 
tone” that is fearful in its pathos and terror. 

“T love that role!’ she exclaimed, as the subject came 
up. “The mad scene! Ah, it is superb!” 


CALVE AND “CARMEN” 295 


Even in “Faust,” the very Ancient of Days among 
operas, Mme. Calvé has surprized us with original 
touches, altho it is a work that every musician of any 
description has performed in some way or other. The 
pianist flourishes with the waltz, or a general fantasia 
of the opera on every and all occasions.. The organist 
delights in the church-scene music, while the violinist 
rhapsodizes with the love duo or a potpourri of all the 
arias. Concert sopranos never cease to exploit the ‘‘Jewel 
Song,” while the contralto’s audience never tires of the 
famous “Flower Song.” “O Sancta Medaglia” is dear 
to the heart of the barytone, and the tenor has a choice 
of beautiful solos from the first act to the last. Bass 
singers can find nothing better as a medium for gaining 
public favor than Mephisto’s song to the “God of Gold.” 
Even flutists and clarinetists resort to ‘Faust,’ the Im- 
perishable, when they want something sure to please. 
And last, but not least, the cornet—ask any soloist on 
this instrument what piece he has played most often, 
and, I warrant you, he will answer, “My Faust fantasie!” 
The opera singer who does not have in her scrapbook 
some account of her performance as Marguerite can 
hardly count herself a prima donna. No other opera is 
so essentially a piece of common property as is this 
Gounod’s “Faust.” 

So much the more is Mme. Calvé’s achievement to be 
wondered at. A very stroke of genius is the dropping 
of Marguerite’s prayer-book in the excitement of her 
first meeting with Faust, so symbolical is it of his effect 
on her life. This is more than realism—it is poetry. 

Again, in the Spinning Song, she creates an exquisite 
_ effect by disentangling a knot in the thread on her wheel 
and at the same time slowing up with her song and 


296 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


diminishing it until the wheel turns again and she resumes 
the tempo. 

When asked how she ever thinks of these innovations, 
especially the one of inserting ecstatic little laughs in the 
Jewel Song, she smiled prettily and shrugged her 
shoulders. 

“Tt just comes to me in the acting—I don’t know how. 
But I never change the music.” 

She wished it impressed that, whatever her innova- 
tions, she maintains a reverence for all of the composer’s 
work, 

There is something about Mme. Calvé that makes you 
feel in her presence the subtle influence of a large heart 
-and a grand soul. In her own land she is famed not only 
for her singing, but also for her great generosity. 


CEA Di oul. 
“CARMEN” 


VERYONE likes “Carmen.” Its popularity has 
been ascribed to the fact that “the action explains 
itself to the eye.” One might also add that the music 
explains itself to the ear, for the themes are all unfurled 
and displayed like so many banners. In choosing Mért- 
meée’s novel for a libretto, Bizet recognized the growing 
demand for dramatic plots with rapid action—a demand 
which has since evolved such one-hour tragedies as 
“Cavalleria Rusticana” and “I Pagliacci.” Aside from 
the stirring romance and fascinating music, “Carmen” 
also presents very delightful stage-pictures. The suburbs 
of Seville form an interesting setting, and the characters 
all require brilliant costumes. A bull-fighter, two smug- 
glers, three gypsies, cigaret-girls, and soldiers—not a 
plain individual among them! 

Before meeting these unusual personages we are pre- 
sented with a letter of introduction from Bizet, which, 
because it is written in musical notation, the orchestra 
kindly interprets to us. We herein learn that these peo- 
ple take their pleasures, loves, and hates at a breakneck 
pace. There is a feverish excitement about the whole 
prelude; but at the end we hear a tragic minor motif of 
passion and pain that sends a chill to the heart. It is the 
Carmen-theme—Carmen herself. 

A gay plaza in Seville is the first scene of action. At 
one side is the guard-house, near which are a number of 
soldiers who mingle and converse with the other strollers 
and promenaders. ‘A gossiping, good-natured chorus 

297 


298 ORERAVANDWITS ro PARS 


about the square and the people is the opening number. 
This pleasing melody, in spite of its simplicity, has 
strange intervals and a restless tempo that are thoroughly 
Spanish. A young peasant girl soon enters, rather 
timidly. It is Micaela, the high soprano role, which 
because of its two fine arias is often taken by a great 
artist, altho the part is a subordinate one. It has fre- 
quently been sung by Madame Eames. Micaela inquires 
for a brigadier called Don José. An officer politely in- 
forms her that Don José belongs to the next guard, which 
will soon arrive. With a musical phrase of dainty and 
condescending gallantry he invites her to tarry with them. 
Micaela declines the invitation, and uses the same musical 
setting for her own words. With the announcement that 
she will return after a while she escapes from their 
entreaties. The chorus is resumed, and the walking and 
talking go on as before. Soon the fifes and drums of the 
relief guard are heard in the distance. The soldiers in 
front shoulder arms and stand in file as the approaching 
company appears, followed by a lot of street gamins who 
keep step and sing to the music. This is so lively and 
inspiriting that we would march and sing too if we dared. 
There is a satisfying quantity of this “‘ta-ta-ta-ra”” music. 
After marching to the foreground the new guards change 
place with the old, who are then led away with the same 
contingent of music and street boys. The soldiers and 
people at last disperse, leaving Don José and a superior 
officer, Zuniga, conversing together. The latter points 
to a large building, which he says is the cigaret factory, 
where are employed many pretty girls. Don José pro- 
fesses to care little for these, and we soon learn that he 
loves Micaela. 

The factory bell now rings, and a crowd of young 


“CARMEN” 209 


men and boys at once fill the square in eager anticipation 
of seeing the cigar girls. ‘José sits down near the guard- 
house and busies himself with a little chain he is mend- 
ing. The tenors sing a short pianissimo chorus about 
these dark-eyed girls, whom they always court and fol- 
low. It closes with a drooping, yearning ritardando that 
quite prepares us for the next languishing measures. The 
factory girls enter, with cigarets in their mouths and a 
nonchalant manner that is delightful. Between puffs of 
smoke they sing a slumbrous refrain that suggests the 
effect of nicotine. The lingering legato melody seems to 
rise softly and rest in the air until it passes away in tones 
so faint that Bizet has marked them four times pianis- 
simo. 

The young men now accost the girls, and soon inquire 
for Carmen. ‘“‘Where is Carmen?’ That tragic cry 
which ended the prelude is heard again in the orchestra, 
but so disguised by rapid tempo as to be scarcely recog- 
nizable, and with this theme Carmen rushes upon the 
scene. 

Black-eyed, pearly-teethed Carmen, with cheeks like 
the red acacia flowers at her throat, and her whole appear- 
ance like a splash of sunshine! 

The youths clamor about her and inquire collectively 
when she will love them. Carmen bestows regardlessly 
some of her dangerous laughing glances, and then sings 
her great song, the “Habanera,” so called because of its 
rhythm, which is like the Spanish dance of that name. 
But no mazy, undulating dance could be so fascinating 
as this song about “Love, the child of Bohemia.” The 
compass of its ravishing melody is within a single octave. 
The notes cling lovingly together, for the intervals are 
mostly half-tones; and, indeed, as Carmen sings them 


300 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


each one seems like a kiss or a caress. The theme is 
first given in the minor, and then softly taken up by 
the chorus in the major—an effect as surprizing and 
delightful as a sudden breeze on a sultry night. The 
accompaniment is like the soft picking of mandolins, and 
all things combine to represent the warm luxuriance of 
Spain. 

During the song Carmen has perceived Don José, who 
continues his work and gives her no attention whatever, 
which is a new experience for this spoiled and petted 
cigaret-girl. She purposely becomes more personal in 
her song, and ends with the audacious words, “if you 
love me not and I love you—beware!’” With a sudden 
dash of impertinent coquetry she flings a flower at Don 
José, and then rushes off the stage amid peals of laughter 
from the others, who follow. The young soldier, thus 
left alone, finds himself troubled with mingled feelings 
of resentment at the girl’s impudence and admiration for 
her beauty. He puts the flower in his coat, but at once 
forgets the whole incident as he sees Micaela, whom he 
joyously welcomes. 

She has come to town for a day, and she brings a letter 
from his mother, also some money, and still something 
else, which she hesitates over, but finally delivers as it 
was given her—a kiss from his mother. There is nothing 
of the coquette about Micaela, and her songs are all 
straightforward, simple airs that win by their very art- 
lessness. Her message is sung with harp accompaniment, 
and the harmonies are pure and clear. Then follows a 
duet about the mother and home in the village, and the 
tenderness of this music reveals that Don José is a loving 
and devoted son. When the duet is ended Micaela leaves 
José to read his letter. Music as peaceful as village 


“CARMEN” 301 


church bells comes from the orchestra while the young 
soldier reads. He touches the letter to his lips and is 
prepared to obey his mother, especially in the matter of 
wedding the pretty Micaela. 

His thoughts are interrupted by a wild scream from 
the factory and sounds of disputing voices. A number 
of girls rush from the building, all talking at once, and 
they fairly besiege Zuniga with explanations of what 
has happened. ‘There was a quarrel and Carmen struck 
another girl—some say she did, and some say she didn’t. 
Don José, in the meantime, has gone into the factory, 
and brings out the struggling Carmen. He tells his 
superior officer about the affair, which ended in one girl’s 
being wounded by “this one.” Carmen tosses her head, 
and when the officer asks what she has to say in defense 
she looks into his face and sings “la-la-la-la!’ Her im- 
pertinence would be almost repellent were it not that her 
voice is “like the wooing wind,” and even her “la-la-la’’ 
is bewitching. Further questioning only elicits the same 
response, and the officer angrily declares she may finish 
her song in prison. He orders Don José to fetter her 
hands and keep watch while he goes to make out the 
order of imprisonment. While all are gone an interesting 
scene occurs between the prisoner and her keeper. The 
latter ties her hands, and says he must take her soon to 
prison as his superior has ordered. Carmen,.in her pres- 
ent attitude of charming helplessness, announces with 
sweetest tones that Don José will help her, in spite of 
the orders, because “I know you love me!” This is too 
much. When José recovers from his astonishment at 
her audacity he commands her to sit still and not speak 
to him—‘‘not another word.” Carmen nods her head in 
saucy obedience, and talks no more; she only sings! Sings 


302 OPERA CON OFS ior AUS 


of “an inn near the ramparts of Sevilla’ where she will 
go to dance the Seguidilla. The song is in the rhythm 
of that dance, and its sinuous melody is handled by 
Carmen like a toy. She composes words to suit the 
occasion: “My heart is free and willing to love whoever 
loves me.” 

Don José, who has been trying to ignore her, but with- 
out success, tells her again to stop. She looks up with a 
grieved expression and her prettiest smile, and says she 
is not talking, only singing to herself and thinking; he 
surely can not forbid her thinking! So she goes on think- 
ing aloud about a “certain officer, who is not captain, 
nor even lieutenant—he is only a brigadier; but still he 
is great enough to win the heart of Carmen.’ Such 
words, music, glances, and smiles are more than Don 
José can resist, and it is not long before he succumbs to 
her witchery. He unties her hands and asks desperately, 
“Carmen, Carmen, do you mean it?” And for answer 
she softly sings to him that rapturous song of the 
Seguidilla. 

The orchestra now starts up a lively repetition of the 
last chattering chorus, and with it the superior officer, 
Zuniga, reenters. He hands José the order and bids him 
lead the prisoner to her destination. Carmen holds her 
hands back, as tho still fettered, and she tells José in an 
undertone to let her push him as they march off, and 
during the commotion thus aroused she will escape. Then 
she turns to Zuniga, and with the greatest effrontery 
favors him with a fragment of the “Habanera” song, to 
which refrain she marches away with apparent docility. 
The whole group of cigaret-girls and young men follow 
after. Just as they are turning to the bridge, Carmen 
escapes as she has planned. She throws back the rope 


“CARMEN” 303 


from her hands and runs off laughing. It is fun for 
all but Don José, who for this neglect of duty is himself 
escorted to prison. | 

Bizet has preceded every act with an orchestral intro- 
duction called the entracte, which presents some im- 
portant theme or portrays the character of the scene. 
Thus before the curtain rises on the second act we 
become familiar with a new and happy melody, which 
we later on recognize and welcome. After the entr’acte 
the stringed instruments, with a touch of the triangle 
and tambourine, hold the supremacy as they breathe 
forth faint, weird harmonies that flit about like moving 
shadows. ‘The scene presents an interior view of the 
inn “near the ramparts of Sevilla.” 

It is evening, and amid the glow of soft lights Carmen 
and her gypsy friends are entertaining some officers with 
their dancing. She further enlivens the scene by sing- 
ing a Bohemian song, whose liquid phrases fall upon 
the air like the soft splashing of a fountain. 

After the song and dance it is time for the inn to close, 
but at this moment shouts and hurrahs are heard from 
without. It is a torchlight procession in honor of 
Escamillo, the bull fighter, who presently enters amid 
general acclamations. He wears a gorgeous costume, 
and sings a rousing song about the exciting life of a 
toreador. This barytone aria is the most famous of the 
many popular numbers which comprise this opera. Its 
strongly accented rhythm and pulsating theme immedi- 
ately suggest the blaze of lights and blare of trumpets 
which belong to the arena. 

Escamillo soon perceives Carmen, and as quickly falls 
in love. She dismisses him with a coquettish remark 
that might mean much or little, and then all depart ex- 


304 OPERAVAND IETS STARS 


cepting Carmen and her two gypsy friends, Frasquita 
and Mercedes. These are soon joined by their comrades, 
the two smugglers, who softly tell of a new enterprise 
which will require the “ladies’ assistance.” Frasquita 
and Mercedes consent to leave at once. Then follows an 
exquisite quintet, sung with tempo prestissimo and tones 
pianissimo. Carmen suddenly astounds them with the 
assertion that she can not go, and gives as her reason 
that she is awaiting Don José, who to-day is released 
after two months’ imprisonment, and further adds that 
she loves him. They take this at first as a joke; but 
finding her determined, they suggest that she induce 
José to join them. She says she will try, and the rest 
hurry out as they hear the young soldier approaching. 

He is singing a gay barrack song, and thus comes to 
Carmen with his heart in his voice and soul in his eyes. 
She welcomes him impulsively, and ere long she sings | 
and dances for his amusement. Her song is but an accom- 
paniment to the dance—a low, crooning melody without 
words which resembles the contented purring of a magni- 
ficent feline as she glides and sways with a splendid grace 
around the infatuated José. A bugle-call is heard in the 
distance, a summons the soldier must obey, and he stops 
Carmen in the midst of her dance. She thinks he is 
joking and commences again; but when she actually 
realizes that he is going to leave her, that he finds it 
possible to leave, a perfect whirlwind succeeds the sirocco. 
She throws him his cap and sword, and bids him go 
forever if such is his love. Poor Don José remonstrates, 
but she will not listen until at last he forces her to hear 
how real and true is his love for her. He draws from 
his coat the little flower she threw at him two months 
ago, and he tells how, during all his days in prison, it was 





© AIME DUPONT, N. Y. 


CALVE As “CARMEN” 





“CARMEN” | 305 


his dearest treasure. This music is more like the song of 
a pilgrim at a sacred shrine than a song of love, it is so 
simple and sincere. Its tenderness seems to reach even 
the heart of Carmen, for she now turns and with entreat- 
ing looks and wooing tones she coaxes him to go with 
her and lead the free life of a bandit. 

The accompaniment is like the distant prancing of wild 
horses and the melody like the forest wind, low as a 
whisper, but sweeping before it all the fluttering doubts 
of a weak conscience. It is desertion, disgrace, dishonor, 
that Carmen asks of him, and José recoils. He is just 
on the point of refusing when a knock is heard at the 
door and Zuniga enters. He is himself in love with 
Carmen, and has presumed thus to return after the others 
have gone, in hopes of finding her alone. On discovering 
the presence of Don José he is angry and orders him 
away; but José’s jealousy is also aroused and he firmly 
refuses to obey. A duel would ensue did not Carmen 
quickly call her friends. They seize Zuniga, and to avoid 
being denounced must keep him prisoner until they have 
made sure their escape. Carmen turns to José and asks 
once more if he will be one of them. As there is now no 
alternative, he consents, whereupon Carmen, with light 
steps and light heart, rushes to his arms like a sunbeam, 
dispelling for the moment all clouds of memory and 
doubt. The free, fearless measures of her mountain 
song are heard again as all sing about the gypsies’ life 
of liberty. They all go off as the curtain falls. 

The next entr’acte is sometimes called the intermezzo, 
for it divides the opera—the comedy from the tragedy— 
and it contains the first premonition of sorrow. As the 
curtain rises we hear a stealthy, shivering theme that 
well characterizes the scene before us—a wild, picturesque 


306 OPERA AN DMs STARS 


ravine, which is the smugglers’ retreat. Some gypsies 
are reclining on the rocks; others soon enter, and sing 
a quite enticing chorus about the dangers and pleasures 
of their profession, Two leaders of the band then go 
off to reconnoiter, while the others rest. Don José is 
seen standing on one of the rocks, and when Carmen 
rather moodily inquires his thoughts he tells her of his 
mother in the village, who still believes him to be an 
honest man. Carmen coldly advises him to go back to 
her. Quick as thought-suggestion the orchestra recalls 
the tragic motif which we had almost forgotten. It 
causes us to feel with José the sting of Carmen’s words. 

Our attention is now directed to Frasquita and Mer- 
cedes, who are seated on a bale of goods and trying their 
fortunes. A light staccato accompaniment sustains their 
still lighter song. The dainty measures are flung up like 
bubbles, reflecting the gay colors of the cards, which 
chance to be all diamonds and hearts. Carmen also tries 
her luck, but only the dark cards fall to her—death, 
always death; and to the superstitious gypsy this is like 
a knell. Again that tragic, mournful theme, like the 
extended hand of fate, feels its way slowly but surely 
through the orchestra, and then Carmen sings a medita- 
tive, melancholy refrain about the cards whose “decrees 
are: never /falsé.” = Dhe) music) isuin: ay low key, vaseino 
kept under and depressed by her despair, and it touches 
our sympathy to see the sunny, frivolous Carmen for 
once thoughtful. | 

The two smugglers presently return and report that 
three coast-guards intercept the way. The girls promise 
to entertain and divert these while the men make off with 
the booty. To the strains of a rollicking chorus they all 
go out, after stationing Don José as watch on one of the 


“CARMEN” 307 


highest rocks. At this moment Micaela, with a guide, 
comes timidly forward. She has dared to follow the 
smugglers to this retreat for the purpose of seeing José 
and begging him to return. She has tried to be brave, 
but her heart now trembles, and this fact she confesses 
in her beautiful and best aria, “Je dis que rien ne m’épou- 
vante’”’ (“I say that nothing terrifies me”). As she begs 
Heaven to strengthen her courage, the soft arpeggios of 
the instruments seem to rise like incense and carry her 
sweet prayer with them. She presently perceives José in 
the distance and tries to attract his attention, but he is 
watching another intruder, on whom henow fires. Micaela 
hides herself in terror as Escamillo enters and philoso- 
phically studies the newly made bullet-hole in his cap. 
Don José also comes down to interrogate this visitor. 
The toreador good-naturedly informs him that he has 
fallen in love with a gypsy girl, Carmen, and comes to 
find her. He also adds, “It is known that a young soldier 
recently deserted his post for her, but she no longer loves 
him.” Jealousy seems but a feeble word to describe the . 
feelings of Don José on hearing this. He quickly reveals 
his identity and challenges the toreador. After a short 
duet, which contains chromatic crescendos of blind fury 
for the tenor and insolent intervals for the barytone, they 
fight. Carmen, for the second time, averts a duel by her 
timely entrance. She calls for help, and the whole troupe 
of gypsies rush in. They separate the rivals and order 
them to suspend their quarrel, as all is now arranged for 
the journey. Before bidding farewell Escamillo invites 
all to his next bull-fight in Seville. “Whoever loves me 
will come,’’—this with a tender look to Carmen that mad- 
dens José. 

Escamillo goes off and the others also start, but they 


308 OPERA EANDIHECS Tov ks 


suddenly discover Micaela in her hiding-place and bring 
her forward. She is frightened and rushes to José for 
protection, begging him to go home with her. Carmen 
cruelly seconds this entreaty, and then José turns upon 
her: “Take care, Carmen!” The words are menacing, 
but not so the music. José suffers more than he hates, 
and, instead of the rising tones of anger, the harmonies 
which struggle upward are continually repulsed as they 
reach the top, like a wild bird that beats its wings against 
prison bars. When Micaela finally tells him that his 
mother is dying, Don José consents to go. He calls out 
to Carmen, “We shall meet again!’ She pays little heed 
to his words, but a glad smile lights her features as she 
hears in the distance the song of the toreador. And with 
this melody the act ends. 

The final scene represents the gates of the arena where 
occurs the great bull-fight, and the preceding entr’acte 
is like the flaming advertisement of a circus, exciting and 
enthusing from first to last. The opening chorus is sung 
by venders who throng the square and cry their wares. 
After this the arena music announces the entrance of the 
performers. They come in on horseback, and amid 
enthusiastic greetings from the crowd ride into the arena. 
Escamillo, the hero of the hour, enters with Carmen at 
his side. The public cry, “Viva, Escamillo!’ and burst 
into a vociferous singing of the “Toreador Song.” Car- 
men is radiant as the dawn, and the bull-fighter wears 
colors and spangles that quite eclipse any soldier’s uni- 
form. Before he enters the ring they sing a love-duet 
that displays more depth of feeling than we should expect 
from a Zingara. 

When the toreador has gone and the arena gates are 
closed, Mercedes and Frasquita anxiously inform Carmen 


“CARMEN” 309 


that Don José has been seen in the crowd, and they urge 
her to leave; but she declares she is not afraid of José 
or any one. They leave her alone, and presently the 
rejected lover appears before her. But not in anger or 
to avenge does Don José present himself. He is too 
utterly dejected and broken-hearted for that. He comes 
only to entreat and plead for her love. Before he speaks 
we are warned by the ever-terrible death-theme which 
has hung over the whole opera like a suspended sword, 
that the end is near. But Don José does not know this. 
Neither does Carmen, else perhaps she would not so 
ruthlessly spurn him when he begs her to go with him 
and begin a new life. When he piteously asks if she no 
longer loves him, her answer is a decisive “Non; je ne 
t'aime plus.’’ But words have lost their sting for poor 
José. Inamunor melody, that seems to cry out for pity, 
he says he loves her still. He offers to remain a bandit— 
anything, all things! And then the pathetic minor melody 
breaks into the major as he desperately adds: “Only, 
Carmen, do not leave me!” At this moment a fanfare 
and applause are heard in the arena, which cause Car- 
men’s face to glow with pleasure as she thinks of Esca- 
millo. She tries to rush past Don José into the amphi- 
theater, but he intercepts her and forces her to confess 
that she loves this man whom they applaud. Once again 
the gay fanfare is heard, and Carmen tries to pass. 

It is now that the tragic motif takes possession of the 
orchestra and dominates all else. Fearful and appalling 
sound those five notes which form the theme as they are 
repeated in various keys. Ina frenzy of anguish Don 
José asks Carmen for the last time to go with him. She 
refuses, and then, as the toreador’s song of triumph 
announces his success, José stabs the beautiful gypsy, 


310 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


who falls at his feet like a crushed butterfly. The gates 
of the arena are thrown open and its glittering pageant 
comes forth, while José, with insane grief, calls out, “I 
have killed her—Carmen—whom I adored \y 

There is no climax more thrilling on the lyric stage 
than this death of Carmen. 


GH in Wail SMITH DSS 
sia bead Ba 


F ALL Shakespeare’s plays, “Hamlet” is the most 
() difficult to surround with music and adapt for the 
lyric stage. It is more scholastic than dramatic, and for 
this reason composers have passed it by with the single 
exception of Ambroise Thomas. His accomplishment 
certainly deserves more commendation than was bestowed 
by an irrate critic who said: “There are four weary, 
dreary acts before you come to the music.” This asser- 
tion is correct in one way, for the opera is indeed long— 
quite too long; but there is, nevertheless, much that is 
beautiful in those four acts preceding the mad scene. But 
even were this not the case, that last scene is so exquisite 
that it would atone for any amount of previous ennui. 

Thomas has given his principal role to the barytone, 
which seems an innovation. Whenever a lower voice 
has been honored with the leading role in a Grand Opera 
the reason is found in the character, as the jovial “Barber 
of Seville,” the deformed “Rigoletto,” the accursed “Fly- 
ing Dutchman”; but the tenor has always held undisputed 
possession of the lover’s part. It takes us some little time 
to become reconciled to this barytone-voiced young prince. 
But we finally realize that he is less a lover than a philoso- 
pher, which propably explains why Thomas turned from 
the tenor. 

The opera opens with a short and somber prelude that 
~ closely resembles the later introduction to the ghost-scene. 
It is therefore more descriptive of the “melancholy Dane” 

311 


Riz OREWA GND iets es TANiss 


than of the first act, which is brilliant throughout. The 
curtain rises upon a state hall in the palace, where have 
been celebrated the wedding and coronation of Claudius 
and Gertrude, brother and widow of the late king. A 
sturdy march that is quite Danish in character accom- 
panies the grand entrance of the king and queen. That 
music can express nationality is clearly evinced by this 
march, which possesses a rugged, North-sea atmosphere 
that differs from all others. The first aria is given by the 
king, who eulogizes his new-made wife, “our sometime. 
sister, now our queen.” After this bass solo with its 
pleasing rhythm and satisfying cadences the queen in- 
quires for her son Hamlet, who is not among the revel- 
ers. But her anxieties are drowned by the festive music 
that recommences and continues until the entire court 
have made their exit. 

The music now changes to a meditative, minor mood, 
which announces the entrance of Hamlet. He shares no 
joy on this occasion of his mother’s wedding, and his 
first words are a short recitative about “frailty, thy name 
is woman.” 

His soliloquy is followed by a phrase in the orchestra— 
a timid, questioning sort of introduction which before 
the opera is over we learn to associate with the gentle 
Ophelia. She enters and addresses Hamlet, her betrothed, 
with an anxious inquiry about his intended departure 
from Denmark. On learning from his own lips that the 
report is true, she asks why he leaves, and begins to doubt 
his love. There is a daintiness and delicacy to all of 
Ophelia’s music; and in this short melody, so admirably 
blended with the accompaniment, there is a wooing charm 
that diverts even Hamlet from his grief. He clasps her 
hands, and with thrilling fervor bids her— 


salou i bpald By: 313 


“Doubt that the stars are fire, 
Doubt that the sun doth move, 
Doubt Truth to be a liar, 
But never doubt I love.” 


This is the great theme of the opera, the center-stone of 
the musical crown that the French composer has given 
to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Its love-laden melody would 
carry conviction to a less trusting heart than Ophellia’s. 
She receives it like truth from heaven. Its memory lin- 
gers ever, and even in her after madness, when the words 
have no meaning, we hear them again “like sweet bells 
jangled out of tune.” There follows a duet based upon 
Hamlet's vow. ‘The soprano voice occasionally runs up 
in some happy little roulades which seem like the outburst 
of joy which can not confine itself to the prescribed 
theme. However long the whole opera, we certainly 
could not spare a note from the love-duet; it ends only 
too soon. 

Ophelia’s brother, Laertes, comes in. He is a soldier, 
and has just received a commission which requires his 
speedy departure; so he sings a farewell to his sister and 
bids Hamlet be as a brother to her in case he never 
returns. This first and only cavatina of Laertes is well 
worth a good artist. It is melodious and pleasing, even 
when compared to the previous duet. As he finishes, gay 
music is heard from the inner hall. Ophelia asks Hamlet 
to join the festivities, but he declines and retires sorrow- 
fully as some pages and young officers enter. They sing 
a unique and merry chorus without accompaniment, which 
is interrupted by the entrance of Horatio and Marcellus, 
who inquire for Hamlet. They declare they have seen 
the ghost of the late king, and seek to apprize Hamlet 


314 OP BRAUN amos 


of the fact. The merry-makers laugh and call it a delu- 
sion; but the two friends continue their search for the 
young prince. The dance music is resumed, and so 
fascinating and emphatic is its rhythm that our pulses 
throb in tempo long after the curtain descends. 

The second act represents the esplanade outside of the 
castle. It is a chilly moonlight night—a sharp contrast 
to the beam of lights from within and the blare of dance 
music which ever and anon reaches our ears. But the 
prelude which opens the act. is thoroughly descriptive of 
the scene before us. It has deep, rumbling tremolos and 
chilling chromatic crescendos, with here and there a 
moaning, wo-weighted theme that is piteous to hear. 
There is much singing without the orchestra and much 
orchestra without singing in this scene of the esplanade, 
which accounts for the charge against it of being “rather 
thin ghost music.” Horatio and Marcellus are the first 
to enter. They are soon joined by Hamlet, to whom they 
recount the strange visitation of the previous night. As 
they wait and watch for the specter to reappear, a gay 
fanfare from the palace jars upon the stillness. Strains 
of the wedding-march are heard, and there seems abun- 
dant reason for the dead king to rise from his grave! 
Haniet utters expletives over the mockery of such gaiety 
within, while “here is the shadow of mourning.” His 
words are accompanied by an oft-repeated minor phrase 
of four notes which 1s stealthy and fearful. This ghost- 
theme alternates with a single monotonous tone that rep- 
resents the twelve strokes of a clock. Hamlet hushes his 
singing; there is a soft, eerie tremolo of the violins; the 
pale moonlight falls upon the castle’s turreted towers. 
Marcellus and Horatio speak in whispers, when suddenly 
the orchestra gives a great crash of brass and cymbals 


SEA WU 315 


that makes your blood freeze. The fantom has appeared. 
Now follows the incantation, so called because Hamlet 
conjures the spirit to speak to him. This music is based 
entirely upon the four-note ghost-theme, which is elab- 
orated and carried by the orchestra through many forms. 
At last the specter speaks, and in a deep monotone informs 
Hamlet how he was murdered by the present King. His 
own brother stole his life, his wife, and his throne. He 
bids Hamlet avenge this terrible crime, and then disap- 
pears. Hamlet cries out in a theme large and grand, 
“Farewell to fame, love, and happiness!” Revenge shall 
hereafter be the aim of his life. 

The peaceful love-music greets our ears as we look 
upon the next scene, which reveals the gardens of the 
palace. The superb theme of Hamlet’s vow, “Never doubt 
I love,” rings out in clear, untroubled octaves as the fair 
Ophelia comes forward with a book in her hand. She 
is trying to read, but thoughts of Hamlet constantly in- 
trude themselves. “He has not touched my hand for 
quite two days, and seems to avoid my presence.” She 
again turns to her book and reads aloud. Ophelia reads 
very beautifully. Thomas has with music conveyed the 
impression of enunciating words from a book. We 
would know she was reading even if the book were not 
visible nor the words audible, and yet it is not by means 
of a monotone that this idea is conveyed. It is a simple 
song melody, and the effect is probably due to the 
rhythm rather than the intervals. After reading one 
stanza, Hamlet’s vow—that theme so deep and true—is 
again heard, and the hero himself comes thoughtfully 
upon the scene. He is in the background, but Ophelia 
has seen him, and she quickly makes a pretense of read- 
ing. She listens for every step as he draws nearer, and 


316 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


believes he will speak. He sees her and at first comes 
forward, but then remembers that he has foresworn 
love; and thinking she has not seen him, he quietly re- 
tires. Poor Ophelia throws down her book in wildest 
grief, and a song of despair springs from her heart. 
“Vows have wings and they fly with the dawn; the day 
which gives them birth also sees them die.’’ Every note 
is like a tear, and the harmonies are plaintive and pitiful. 

The Queen presently enters and is grieved to find 
Ophelia weeping. The latter explains that Hamlet no 
longer loves her, and she begs permission to leave the 
court; but the Queen puts other ideas in her head. She 
says that Hamlet has also acted strangely toward her, 
and she believes his mind is affected. For this reason 
she asks Ophelia to remain, and hopes her presence may 
restore him. This first song of the Queen, who must 
have a mezzo-soprano voice of dramatic quality, com- 
bines dignity and pathos. Its mood does not contrast, 
but harmonizes with the previous aria. Ophelia accents 
the Queen’s advice, and then goes off as the King enters. 
He confers with his wife about Hamlet’s alarming be- 
havior, but their conversation is interrupted by the Prince 
himself, who greets them moodily and assumes more 
vagaries than he feels. He is constantly seeking to 
entrap the King into some sign or remark which will 
verify the Ghost’s charge of murder. He has therefore 
planned to have a play enacted which shall depict the 
King’s crime. His invitation to this theatrical entertain- 
ment is welcomed by the unsuspecting King and Queen, 
who are delighted that he thus seeks diversion. As they 
go off, Hamlet explains tragically, “Patience, my father, 
patience!’ and the orchestra reveals to us thoughts of 


TAEDA WEBI” Ly) 


revenge, for we hear again that ponderous and melan- 
choly theme which ended the “Ghost scene.” 

Hamlet is now joined by the actors whom he has 
engaged for the play. They sing a characteristic chorus 
about their several talents, and then Hamlet explains to 
them the plot they are to enact—how a king whom he 
calls Gonzago shall be poisoned by his brother, who after- 
ward places the crown on his own head and marries the 
widow. After this preliminary, Hamlet calls for wine 
and bids the players make merry. He sings to them a 
drinking-song of dazzling exuberance. 

It is strange how universally successful operatic com- 
posers are in the matter of drinking-songs. One can 
name off-hand more popular chansons bachique than any 
other one style of aria. There are various well-known 
serenades and prayers and spinning-songs, but of drink- 
ing-songs there are any number. “Lucrezia Borgia,” 
“Rigoletto,” “Traviata,” “Huguenots,” “Cavalleria Rus- 
ticana,’—their drinking-songs are heard every day on 
the hand-organs in the street. And so in “Hamlet” its 
drinking-song is one of the most celebrated numbers of 
the opera. Its bubbling rhythm and hilarious melody are 
continued even after the song is ended and the curtain 
descends. It lingers like the effect of wine. 

Act III is the play scene. There is a small stage erected 
at one side of the spacious palace hall, and opposite this 
is a throne for the King and Queen. The orchestra car- 
ries everything before it with the rousing Danish march 
which accompanies the ceremonious entrance of the 
entire court. This composition ranks with the drinking- 
song in popularity. When all are assembled, Hamlet 
places himself in a position to watch the King, and as 
the mimic play proceeds he explains the action, which 1s 


318 OPARA VAIN Dis US ATS 


all in pantomime. The orchestral descriptive music of 
this play within a play is beautiful and interesting. As 
in Ophelia’s reading, the simple melody and hesitating 
rhythm again convey the impression of something in- 
serted, something apart from the real action of the play. 
Hamlet becomes more and more excited as the play goes 
on, for he sees unmistakable signs of uneasiness in the 
King’s expression; and when at last the mimic murderer 
pours poison into the ear of his sleeping victim, the King 
rises in anger and orders the players away. Hamlet ina 
delirium of vengeful joy cries out the King’s guilt. He 
pushes his way through the surrounding courtiers, and 
with unbridled fury accuses the murderer. He is sus- 
tained by a perfect tidal wave of chords from the 
orchestra, which dash and beat and break, but only harm 
the good ship they bear instead of the rock they attack. 
The people regard Hamlet's charge as an outburst of 
madness, and he presently lends credence to this belief 
by singing with wild hilarity the drinking-song of the 
previous act. The following strong and seething chorus 
of dismay is again interrupted at the very end by Ham- 
let’s mad song— 


“Life is short and death is near; 
We'll sing and drink while yet we may.” 


With a wild mocking laugh he falls into Horatio’s arms 
as the King and court withdraw. 

The great feature of the fourth act is the scene between 
Hamlet and his mother, but there is much besides. The 
scene represents the Queen’s apartment in the palace, and 
the first number is Hamlet’s soliloquy. He blames him- 
self and deems it cowardice that he did not strike the 


“HAMLET” 319 


King dead when he had the opportunity. Then follows 
the musical arrangement of “To be or not to be,” a 
speech so unsuited to music that Thomas has cut it down 
to a few lines. Hamlet presently sees the King approach- 
ing, and he conceals himself behind a curtain with the 
intention of attacking him. But the King thinks himself 
alone, and in agony of mind he kneels on the prie-dieu 
and prays. It is an impressive composition, this prayer 
with its cathedral harmonies and blending accompant- 
ment. Hamlet glides softly toward the door, for he can 
not kill even his father’s murderer at prayer. The King, 
who has heard the footsteps, cries out in terror, for he 
fancies it was the Ghost of his brother. Polonius, the 
father of Ophelia, quickly enters and reassures the King. 
They walk out arm in arm, and from their few words 
it is gleaned that Polonius was an accomplice to the crime. 
Hamlet hears them, and is horrified to learn this fact 
about Ophelia’s father. At this moment the Queen and 
Ophelia enter, and the former announces to Hamlet that 
it is her wish as well as the King’s that his marriage shall 
take place at once. The Prince blankly refuses to obey in 
spite of the Queen's urging; but his heart endures a 
struggle when the poor Ophelia sings of her grief and 
returns to him his ring. The sweet minor strain in her 
song implies a sad resignation that is more touching than 
intense lamentation. She goes out weeping. The Queen 
then turns to Hamlet and upbraids him for his faithless- 
ness. She presently recurs to the terrible scene at the 
play, and utters the famous words, “Thou hast thy father 
much offended.” 

The scene which follows demands great dramatic 
ability of the Queen, as well as vocal strength. After 
a sharp and active recitative dialog, in which Hamlet 


320 OPERAVAN DaIMSes RAS 


announces himself as her judge and no longer her son, 
she sings a fine entreaty that the tenderness of the son 
may mitigate the severity of the judge. It is a strong 
and powerful theme, but Hamlet is obdurate. He con-. 
trasts the late King with the present one in words and 
tones that make his mother cower. She again pleads 
for mercy and forgiveness, and finally. falls in a swoon 
as the stage is darkened and the Ghost appears. Hamlet 
trembles before this admonisher. The music of the 
incantation is again heard, and the fantom bids Hamlet 
spare his mother, but “fail not to avenge.” As the Ghost 
disappears the instruments are weighted with that great 
and gloomy theme of revenge which seems to descend 
and enwrap the whole scene like a dark, heavy mist. The 
Queen awakens; but there is little more seen or heard 
before the curtain falls. 

Act V is known as the “Mad Scene,” one of the most 
beautiful, most ideal, and most difficult creations ever put 
upon the lyric stage. It is seldom performed, merely 
because there are few artists who can adequately sing 
its astonishing music. There are other mad scenes in 
existence. The one from “Lucia di Lammermoor’’ is 
very celebrated, but its music no more expresses the 
vagaries of madness than does any other florid aria. Of 
course, lavish colorature seems appropriate and is con- 
sidered imperative; but Donizetti’s florid fancies are 
mere plumes and flounces draped upon a melody, whereas 
with Thomas these form the texture of the theme. The 
French composer well knows the worth of his mad music, 
and he has taken pains to present it most advantageously. 
You are not ushered at once from the grim and gruesome 
harmonies of the last act to this wealth of inspiration, 
but are first entertained by a ballet of shepherds and 





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© AIME DUPONT, N. Y. 


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“HAMLET? 321 


shepherdesses. During this dance we become accustomed 
to the beautiful rural landscape, the gentle stream at the 
back and the drooping willows. We are also brought 
under the spell of a different kind of music; these pas- 
toral ballet motifs are very charming. They are light 
and fantastic, but at the same time suggest a midsummer 
peace and tranquillity. 

At last the dainty dance is ended, and then the rustic 
- group perceive a strange figure approaching—a beautiful 
maid, with her flowing hair adorned with bits of straw 
and wild flowers. Her white dress is torn, and her bare 
arms carry a straggling bunch of flowers which she plays 
with and caresses. That exquisite inquiring little intro- 
duction which we heard in the first act again announces 
the entrance of Ophelia. She glances a moment at the 
pretty peasants, and then, with intuitive politeness, asks 
permission to join in their sport. There is a subtle pathos 
about this first little phrase, which is sung without accom- 
paniment, and is simple as a child’s question. She goes 
on to tell them how she left the palace at dawn and no 
one has followed. “The tears of night were still on the 
ground and the lark poured forth its morning song.” A 
perfect bird-throat warble of trills and fluttering staccatos 
follows this memory of the lark. But her thoughts are 
varied, and she suddenly turns and asks: ““Why do you 
whisper to each other? Don’t you know me? Hamlet 
is my betrothed, and I—I am Ophelia.” Then she tells 
them, in tones that rest upon the accompaniment like lilies 
on a lake, how Hamlet vowed always to love her and 
that she has given him her heart in exchange. “If any 
one should tell you that he will leave and forget me, do 
not believe it. Believe nothing they tell you, for Hamlet 
is my betrothed, and I—I am Ophelia.” But in spite 


B22 OPERATAN Dds STARS 


of this assertion of Hamlet’s faith, there is throughout 
all the music a ring of perpetual pain. She clasps her 
hand to her head with terror, and exclaims: “If he were 
false I think I should lose my reason!” 

The flowers again hold her attention, and she plays 
with them as the orchestra commences a ravishing waltz 
theme. She at first pays little heed to the music, but its 
gay melody at last drifts to her soul and finds immediate 
expression. The difficult phrases fall from her lips like 
petals from a flower. Gleeful chromatics and happy trills 
are also thrown in, and we would soon forget it was the 
sad Ophelia did she not suddenly tire of this extravagant 
virtuosity. She turns to the shepherds and bids them 
harken to the song she will sing. Then follows a ballad 
whose moaning, minor harmonies sound like a sighing 
breeze. It is about the sirens beneath the water who lure 
men to its glassy depths. The wearied, worried mind of 
the mad girl now revels in a wild, merry laugh, which is 
as quickly followed by passionate sobs; but she finally 
remembers to finish her song about the siren. This 
strange, sad melody possesses a weird charm that is irre- 
sistible. Again she breaks into hilarious laughter and 
uncontrolled weeping. Grief without hope and joy with- 
out memory alternate in rapid succession. The music of 
this portion defies description. It is a perfect conflagra- 
tion of impossible staccatos and scales. With one last 
sweeping chromatic run, that rushes like the whistling 
wind from low D to high E, Ophelia kneels down with 
her flowers and thinks only of them. The peasants retire 
from the scene, and the orchestra take up fragments of 
the waltz. 

They play for some moments, while Ophelia con- 
tentedly rearranges her bouquet. But presently a won- 


DEVANETO RG hg 323 


derful change comes over the music. We hear only the 
string instruments and flute, and soon these, too, are 
hushed, while out of the air a magical song arises. It is 
the siren’s ballad, faint as a vision but with full harmo- 
nies. Thomas has produced this effect of dream-music 
by having the chorus sing behind the scenes with closed 
mouth. This soft humming of a hidden chorus well 
resembles the buried voices of water-nymphs. Ophelia 
at once recognizes the song, and she is drawn by the 
music toward the stream, where she hopes to see the 
sirens. All unconscious, she pushes her way through the 
rushes and reeds on the bank. The chorus has ceased, and 
only the tender, liquid tones of the harp now fill the air. 
Ophelia steps too far and soon falls into the “weeping 
brook.” Her dress bears her up for a time, and we hear 
her sweetly singing as she floats down the stream. It is 
no longer the ballad or the gay waltz, but quite another 
theme to which her memory now clings. It is Hamlet’s 
glorious vow— | 


“Doubt that the sun doth move, 
Doubt truth to be a liar, 
But never doubt I love.” 


Ophelia ends her song with a lingering high note of 
such silvery beauty that it seems like a far-away star in 
the dark night of death. 


Ole baw PORN OG! 


LILLIAN NORDICA—A TETE-A-TETE 


T WAS during one of Patti’s farewell seasons 
| at the old Academy of Music, that a young American 
girl, of the name of Lillian Norton, first appeared as a 
prima donna. She made a success, but not a sensation, 
for she had not then the halo of a European glory, and 
in those days people were too intent on the passing star 
to note any rising one. 

But later on, when she Italianized her name, they 
applauded the same voice more loudly, tho their attention 
was still more directed to the foreign artists who appeared 
every year. 

The American girl all this time never relaxed her 
determination, but kept on working with a will, learning 
roles there was no prospect of using, and studying all 
things in her line. At last she was engaged by the 
Metropolitan Opera Company; but her name was not 
printed at the top of the list, and she was not held out 
as the magnet to fill the house on the opening night. In 
the end, tho, she sang oftener than any of the other 
sopranos, for when they were indisposed she it was that 
always came forward. There was never a role she could 
not sing, and never a time she was not ready. 

The dormant appreciation of her countrymen was at 
last thoroughly aroused. From then her success swept 
onward with unabating force. The enthusiasm she in- 
spired the following season in New York was so great 
that one large club of opera-goers presented her with a 
diamond tiara, and that year the people had to stand in 

324 


LILLIAN NORDICA 326 


line when buying seats to hear Madame Lillian Nordica. 

The Waldorf-Astoria, where she lived when in New 
York, is quite a contrast to the humble New England 
home in Farmington, Me., where she was born. This 
hotel is a city in itself, and the visitor who inquires for 
some distinguished resident is conducted personally along 
the marble avenues and carpeted byways and through the 
beautiful “palm-garden.” The door of Madame Nordica’s 
apartment was opened by a white-capped maid, who 
seated the caller and then left the room. It was the day 
of a blizzard, and from this sixth-floor elevation the 
snow-storm without was of superb fury. It battered 
against the window as tho maddened by the sight within 
of the prima donna’s cosy parlor, the shaded electric 
lights, the wide-open grand piano, and the numerous long- 
stemmed roses, in various tall jars, fragrant and peaceful 
as a summer’s day. Through the silken draperies of a 
doorway could be heard the sound of voices, of occasional 
laughter, and then—a scale, a trill, and a soft high note. 
It was an exquisite Grand-Opera effect with the whistling 
storm by way of orchestral accompaniment. 

Soon the curtains were parted and Madame Nordica 
entered—a woman of regal height and figure, but with 
manners thoroughly American and democratic. 

“Do you mean to say you came through all this storm 
to see me! You are certainly very brave.” These were 
her first words; then she drew up a comfortable chair, 
and added: “Well, it’s just the sort of day to talk and 
take things easy.” 

Madame Nordica’s tones conveyed even more than 
her words, for her voice, in conversation, was noticeably 
beautiful, fascinating in its variety, its softness, and its 
purity. Her face, too, was beautiful and very expressive; 


326 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


she had a remarkably fine complexion, perfect teeth, and 
thoughtful blue eyes set well apart. 

On the occasion of my call Madame Nordica wore a 
house-gown of pale, clinging blue silk, and, with the 
exception of her wedding-ring, had on no jewelry. 

She told me first of her birthplace and home. 

“I was the sixth girl, and I think my parents were 
rather tired out by the time I came. I wasn’t even bap- 
tized!’ Then she talked of her work. 

“T studied first in Boston, and sang there in church; 
but [ made my concert début here in New York with 
Gilmore at the old Madison Square Garden. He took me 
with him to Europe afterward. When I returned to 
America I sang in all the Italian operas, especially 
Verdi's.” 

Madame Nordica still holds in our memory a supreme 
place as a singer of the Italian school, altho her greatest 
fame was won in the Wagner roles. 

When asked if she had ever met Verdi, the singer 
replied in the affirmative. 

“T met him in Italy, but only once. I was much better 
acquainted with Gounod, and also the modern composers, 
Leoncavallo, Mascagni, etc., but now I devote my chief 
time to Wagner.” 

This led to inquiries about Madame Cosima Wagner. 

“Ah, I lived right with her for three months, and it 
was a great privilege for me. Her husband’s music is 
to her like her very eyes. She taught me the German 
and helped me in every way. ‘Lohengrin’ had never been 
sung in Baireuth, and I was to create there the role of 
Elsa.” 

A remarkable honor this was, indeed: to be the first 
Elsa in Wagner’s own temple, under the guidance of his 


PIELTANANORDICAT} © Ben 


- own wife, with the grave of the great composer fairly 
in sight, and memories of the “Mad King”’ on all sides— 
the king whose ears were deaf to the functions of State, 
but open to the art of heaven. 7 

“It was a great opportunity for me, but I sometimes 
thought [I would have to give it up. Oh! I have been 
so discouraged; I have wept barrels of tears!” 

This is a kind message for a great singer to send to 
the many struggling aspirants who may be working under 
discouragement. | 

Madame Nordica insisted that “work is everything. 
The voice is but the material; it is the stone from which 
the cathedral is built.”’ 

After her great success in Baireuth, the American 
prima donna sang Elsa in New York. 3 

“But again I had to sing in Italian, for the rest of the 
company had not learned the German. It was through 
my efforts that they have since studied these roles in the 
original, and we now sing all the Wagner operas in 
German.” 

It was a great musical event when Jean de Reszke and 
Madame Nordica appeared as Tristan and Isolde. This 
love-tragedy done in music is perhaps the most profound 
of all operas. It is somber with sorrow throughout; 
even the great love-duet in the second act is too intense 
and grand in its motifs ever to be called happy. It is 
not the joyous emotion of youth, but the fervor of ma- 
turity, where life itself is staked for a mighty love. This 
second act is a wondrous musical scene. It is in the 
moonlit gardens of the Cornish castle where Tristan and 
Isolde meet clandestinely, while Bragaene, the faithful 
attendant, keeps watch in the tower above. She is not 
seen; but the calm, sustained tones of her watch-tower 


328 OPERATCAND DPS STARS 


song soar out in contrast to the intense love-music like a 
beacon-light on a turbulent sea. 

Another very popular role of Madame Nordica’s, tho 
altogether different in style, was Valentine in “The 
Huguenots.” Her sustained and crescendoed high C in 
the third act of this opera was worth a long journey to 
heat. Madame Fursch-Madi in years agone used to 
sing this rdle very grandly, but she was plain of feature; 
whereas Madame Nordica’s Valentine was so beautiful 
to behold that the audience was aroused to greatest sym- 
pathy with the hero’s struggle between love and duty. 

“Our art is so very legitimate,’ Madame Nordica 
remarked thoughtfully. “The painter or the writer can 
take advice, can be assisted, and has time to consider his 
work; but we must face the music alone, at the point of 
the bayonet as it were, for every tone must come at the 
right moment and on the right pitch. The actress has 
neither of these requirements to meet. It is very trying, 
also, to sing one night in German and the next time in 
some other language. Indeed, every performance is a 
creation. No wonder we are so insistent on the applause. 
A painter or writer can say to himself, if his work is 
not at first well received, ‘Just wait till I am dead! But 
our fate and fame are decided on the spot.” 

Madame Nordica grew enthusiastic as she talked, and 
her face was all animation. 

“Tt is easy to criticize us, but hard for an outsider to 
appreciate the difficulties of our art. No one is in a 
place he does not deserve—at least not for any length of 
time. And I believe, too, that no one lacks for oppor- 
tunity. When people say, So-and-So has a beautiful 
voice, and ought to be on the Metropolitan stage, just 
inquire what that person can do. Very likely she only 





© AIME DUPCLT. N. Y. 


LILLIAN NorpDICA 





LILLIAN NORDICA 329 


knows one language, and probably can not sing a single 
act of one opera straight through. Why should she be 
on the Metropolitan stage? <A girl came to me not long 
ago who had been singing with some English opera com- 
pany. She had a beautiful voice and said she could sing 
everything, which I found to be true. I asked why she 
did not go to Mr. Grau, and she replied, quite disheart- 
ened, that he would do nothing for her. Then I asked, 
‘Are you ready for anything? I feel quite sure he could 
use you now as the page in “Romeo and Juliet.” ’ ‘Oh, 
I wouldn’t sing a secondary role! she quickly exclaimed. 
Now that girl makes a great mistake. To sing well one 
beautiful aria on the same stage with such artists as the 
two De Reszkes and Madame Melba would do her more 
good than to sing the first roles in a poor company.” 

Madame Nordica spoke very earnestly as she related 
this story of a lost opportunity, which so plainly points 
its own moral. Another incident she told gives the 
reverse side of the same idea: 

“IT remember one day some singers were discussing 
another member of their company, and claiming that he 
did not deserve his high position; but I protested, and 
said: ‘Just consider what that man can do. He knows 
every language, has a fine stage presence, a good voice, 
and can sing every role in the repertoire. Now where 
will you get another to fill his place? 

“Our art to-day is very different from what it used 
to be. People wonder who will replace Patti or some 
other retiring singer; but if one should appear who ade- 
quately filled the vacant place, we would at once hear 
people saying, ‘She only sings colorature roles and noth- 
ing but Italian!’ No, the great artist to-day is the one 
who has mastered all, who does the work of three in 


330 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


former years, and not one who shines forth temporarily 
in a few special roles.” 

Madame Nordica certainly could speak with authority 
on this point, for she is one whom we can truly say had 
“mastered all.” Her repertoire was astonishing in its 
scope and variety; and when we consider that out of 
eighty-seven million people, which was our population, 
including the colonies, at that time, she was the only one 
who sang the three “Briinhildes” of Wagner and also his 
“Isolde,” we can then better appreciate Madame Nordica’s 
achievement. It requires a great mind to grasp and por- 
tray these Wagnerian creations. Briinhtlde, the war 
goddess, must be both tender and heroic—as it were, 
divinely human. No composer but Wagner could have 
imparted these qualities; but he was himself a sort of 
musical Jove, who wielded the scale like a thunderbolt. 
If any one doubt this, let him hear and behold the won- 
derful ‘‘Ride of the Walktire,” those five war maidens, 
daughters of Wotan, who chase through the clouds on 
their armored steeds, and call one another in tones un- 
earthly, to an accompaniment of whizzing strings, and 
clanging brass, and a torrent of intricate chords. The 
music depicts the fierce clash of the elements, the war- 
gods in battle, the clamor of shields, and the furious 
dash of wild horses. Above it all there rings out on the 
air the weird, far-reaching cry of Briinhilde, the leader 
of the Walktire maidens, and her call is repeated from 
the East, from the West, from the uttermost mountain- 
peaks, by her sister spirits, who are sometimes hidden 
and sometimes revealed by the fast-rushing clouds, 
through which their steeds gallop and plunge. 

Whoever can hear this wonder-work and not bow to 
Wagner’s greatness is surely a musical degenerate. 


LILLIAN NORDICA 331 


“My progress has not been by leaps and bounds,” 
Madame Nordica said. “It has been more tortoise-like; 
and I have sometimes seen others sweep past me with 
apparently little effort. But in the end justice comes 
-around to all. What is it Mrs. Carter says in ‘Zaza’ 
about success? ‘It comes from much misery.’ Yes, there 
is very much of that. ‘And much work,—ah, a great 
deal of that. ‘And a little luck, —yes, a very little of 
that; it is not good to have much luck.” 

As I arose to go, Madame Nordica added with a 
smile: “You see I could talk on this subject all day. The 
sum of it is, success comes from steady daily work. You 
must work well in the morning, and then work some more 
in the afternoon—and it is well to practise between times 
too!” 


During the opera season of 1907-1908, Madame 
Nordica was a member of Hammerstein's Manhattan 
Opera. After that she sang only occasionally with the 
Boston Opera Company, as in 1912, for she preferred 
to appear on the concert stage under her own manage- 
ment. She began a tour of the world in 1913, but as a 
result of exposure when the Dutch steamship Tasman, 
on which she was a passenger, went ashore, she con- 
tracted pneumonia, and died at Batavia, Java, May 10, 
1914. 


(Ginba gata di neg iil 
“LOHENGRIN” 


HERE seems a very magic about the name “Lohen- 
4] [late mythical strength and beauty that at once 
characterize the whole opera. The fault is occasionally 
found that Wagner’s operas are long and at times tedious; 
but this term is never applied to “Lohengrin.” One is . 
disarmed of this suspicion in the very first prelude. Ah, 
what a prelude is that! It is like the gradual drawing 
together from empty space of all the music of the spheres. 
The two first measures are so pianissimo that we scarcely 
hear them, but the vague and far-away voices come 
slowly nearer. They mingle with each other and weave 
in and out, until there is a crescendo mighty and over- 
powering. We are now prepared for the legendary char- 
acter of the opera; such music could not represent things 
earthly. 

The curtain rises upon a scene of medieval coloring. 
It is a woodland upon the banks of the Scheldt in the 
province of Brabant. A throne is erected on one side, 
and here the King of Germany is holding court. He is 
visiting this province of his realm to solicit aid in a 
coming war. After this fact is announced by the herald, 
the King arises and in stately phrases greets the people 
and explains more fully the object of his visit. He closes 
with the observation that it grieves him to find this 
province in a state of discord, and he requests Frederick 
of Telramund, an esteemed nobleman of Brabant, to 
recount the situation. 

332 


“LOHENGRIN” ae 


Frederick, which is the barytone role, tells a strange 
and interesting story. The province is at present without 
any ducal ruler, owing to the recent mysterious disap- 
pearance of the young heir. He was last seen in com- 
pany with his sister Elsa. Vhe two were walking in the 
forest, but she returned alone and declared she had lost 
her brother. Frederick now charges Elsa with murder, 
and furthermore lays claim to the ducal throne in the 
name of himself and also his wife Ortrud, who bears 
some kinship to the late duke. 

On hearing this charge the King summons Elsa, who 
presently comes forward with bowed head and sorrowful 
mien. This must have been a thrilling moment at that 
first performance in Baireuth when Lillian Nordica 
stepped before the audience. It was not only Elsa chal- 
lenging her accusers, but an American girl challenging 
German critics under the dome of their most hallowed 
shrine, with their own music and in their own language. 
But whatever a singer’s emotions may be, she must give 
no evidence of them. It is wonderful how smoothly 
these great performances always run. Come what may, 
the play goes on. 

Elsa can say no more in her behalf than has already 
been given; but when urged by the King to speak freely 
all that is on her heart, she tells of a wonderful vision 
which came in her hour of distress. An armored knight, 
more grand than any she had seen, appeared to her and 
promised to be her deliverer and champion. This dream- 
song of Elsa’s is like a musical apparition so ethereal and 
spirituelle; but one must not seek for these wonderful 
beauties in the voice-part alone. With Wagner the 
orchestra is never a mere accompaniment, but more often 
the principal part. A theme is sometimes begun in the 


334 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


orchestra and finished by the voice, or it may be alto- 
gether with the instruments. Wagner handles the voice 
like a noble metal which can be fashioned into useful 
vessels to carry and convey the emotions, in contrast to 
the Italian composers, who look upon the voice as a jewel 
to be displayed and admired for its own sake. 

To return to Elsa’s song. It should be understood from 
the first that each theme in the opera expresses some 
emotion or idea which is consistenly adhered to through- 
out. For instance, when Elsa describes the knight in her 
dream, there is heard in the orchestra a few bars of the 
Lohengrin- or Swan-song, a theme which is constantly 
revealing itself in this great kaleidoscope of sound when- 
ever the hero appears or 1s mentioned. Again, when she 
speaks of his glittering armor, the splendid warlike motif 
which asserts itself is the same one that is worked up in 
the crescendo preceding Lohengrin’s arrival. 

After this strange recital of Elsa’s, Frederick still main- 
tains his charge against her, and states as her motive for 
the crime that she hoped to gain the throne for herself. 
The King decides to settle the question by single combat. 
Frederick must defend himself against whomever may 
come forward as Elsa’s champion. This custom is 
according to the ancient belief that “might is right,’ and 
that Heaven itself is the awarder of victory and defeat. 
The herald of the King announces, with a trumpet-call, 
the impending combat, and bids “him who will fight for 
Elsa of Brabant to come forth at once.”’ The call dies 
away, but no one presents himself as her defender, and 
it appears as tho Heaven already indicates which side is 
right. Elsa piteously begs them to call again. Her wish 
is granted, and once more the cry rings forth. She falls 
on her knees, and in tones that vibrate with intense 


“LOMENGRIN” 335 


despair prays Heaven to send her the hero of her dream. 
“Elsa’s Prayer” and ‘“Elsa’s Dream” are two of the most 
beautiful soprano solos in the opera. The prayer is short, 
but it accomplishes a thrilling crescendo. The final climax | 
is such a passionate outcry that we are not surprized to 
see an immediate answer granted. 

Wagner is a master of crescendos, and he now com- 
mences one for the chorus which is truly wonderful in 
effect. Instead of starting all the voices pianissimo, or 
even part of the chorus, he starts with a single voice. 
One man has perceived a knight floating down the river 
in a boat drawn by a swan. He whispers it to his neigh- 
bor, who in turn says, “Look! and then another and 
another in quick succession join in exclamations, until 
all are singing of the strange sight. They rush to the 
bank, and still the wonder grows. The knight of the 
swan draws nearer, the orchestra crashes out its stu- 
pendous theme, the sopranos ring out above everything, 
and the whole chorus seems to have doubled its capacity. 
It is a greeting worthy of the subject, who is Lohengrin 
himself. 

No wonder the people subside and look at him with 
awe as he steps upon the bank. He is clad in shining 
silver, with a helmet, shield, and sword. His face is 
fair and his hair is blond. Before noticing the people 
he turns to the swan and sings it a farewell.. This song 
is only two lines long, and for the most part without 
accompaniment. It is apparently simple, and differs little 
from the form of recitative, and yet so rare and strange 
is this melody that it portrays the legendary character of 
the opera more than any other phrase. It seems as tho 
- Lohengrin is still singing in the mystical language and 
music of that other world from which he has come. 


330 OPERA" ANDES hou 


Every one knows this song by its German name, “Mein 
lieber Schwan,” and it is so much admired and so famous 
that it is actually paraphrased. A man must be great 
indeed to be caricatured; how much more is this true of 
classical music. 

Lohengrin soon comes forward and bows before the 
King, after which he announces that he has been sent as 
champion “for a noble maid who is falsely accused.”’ But 
before entering the combat he speaks to Elsa, who has pre- 
viously offered to bestow her hand and heart upon whom- 
ever would fight for her. She now reiterates this vow 
most gladly, and also makes another promise which the 
strange knight requests—she must never ask from whence 
he came, nor what his name. Lest there be any misun- 
derstanding, he repeats the impressive phrase in a higher 
key, and Elsa again promises. ‘This short theme is most 
important. It might be described as the dark motif. It 
is the one most often heard when Ortrud and Frederick 
do their evil plotting, for it is by means of this inter- 
diction of Lohengrin’s that they eventually succeed in 
accomplishing Elsa’s unhappiness. 

When the two combatants face each other and all is 
ready, the herald again comes forward and solemnly pro- 
claims the rules governing such contests. They are 
interesting to note: “No one shall interfere with the fight 
under penalty of losing his head or his hand’’; and fur- 
thermore, no sorcery or witchcraft shall be exerted, for 
Heaven alone must decide who is right. After this pre- 
liminary the King arises and prays for the just judgment 
of Heaven to show clearly which side is true and which 
is false. Wagner always favored the bass voice when 
possible, and so he has given to the King this splendid 
and impressive composition, with its rich, full chords and 


“LOHENGRIN” Bey 


stirring rhythm. The chorus takes up the prayer and 
finishes it with inspiring breadth and grandeur. The King 
strikes upon his shield three times and the battle begins. 
It does not last long, for Frederick is soon disarmed and 
thrown down by Lohengrin, who, however, spares his 
life. 

The victory has proven Elsa’s innocence and Fred- 
erick’s falsehood. The latter is disgraced utterly, while 
Lohengrin is regarded as Heaven’s favorite. Elsa sings 
forth her joy and gratitude in melodic phrases which 
would need no words. The music of Elsa and Lohengrin 
is like the music of day—it is so clear, so lucid and full 
of melody in contrast to the rugged, weird, and gloomy 
themes of Ortrud and Frederick. 

The great chorus of victory is the last number of this 
act. It brings in with Wagner’s inimitable modulations 
the martial theme of the previous chorus and also Elsa’s 
song of praise. All excepting Ortrud and Frederick look 
happy and join in the singing right heartily as the curtain 
descends. 

The second act comprises Ortrud’s great scene. This 
role may be sung by a contralto, but is better adapted to 
a mezzo-soprano. Ortrud is often called the operatic 
“Lady Macbeth.” She is not only as wicked and ambi- 
tious as Shakespeare’s heroine, but is also a sorceress of 
no mean ability, for it is she who made away with Elsa’s 
brother; but this fact is not revealed until the last act. 
She also exerted her power upon Frederick with such 
effect that he believed her to be a prophetess. He was 
sincere in his accusation against Elsa, for Ortrud told 
him she had witnessed the crime herself. But he is now 
- awakened to her wickedness, and the scene opens with 
his maledictions against her and his abject wretchedness 


338 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


over his own disgrace. The two are seated upon the 
church steps facing the palace, where jubilant prepara- 
tions are going on for the wedding of Elsa and Lohen- 
grin, which will take place at dawn. It is yet night, and 
the music is deep and ominous. The dark motif and a> 
new one which seems to represent Ortrud are the musical | 
heart and soul of this scene. They stalk about the orches- 
tra like restless fantoms, and are heard in all sorts of 
keys and instruments. After Frederick's great harangue 
against his wife and fate and everything, she calmly 
inquires the cause of his anger. She declares that she 
never deceived him, and that the recent combat was un- 
fairly influenced by Lohengrin’s sorcery. Such is her 
power over Frederick that he again believes and listens 
to her plans. She explains how Lohengrin may yet be 
robbed of his power and Frederick’s honor vindicated. 
Elsa must be induced to ask the hero his name, or he 
must be wounded, be it ever so slightly. Either of these 
methods will annihilate his power. This remarkable scene 
closes with a duet about revenge, which the two voices 
sing in unison—a point indicative of their renewed unity 
of purpose. 

The music now changes to harmonies that charm and 
soothe, and Elsa appears upon the balcony of her palace. 
The moonlight falls upon her as she clasps her hands in 
rapture and sings to the gentle zephyrs of her love. It 
is a song as peaceful as the night; and in contrast to the 
recent somber and spectral themes, it beams forth like a 
diamond against black velvet. This solo of Elsa’s is one 
of the most difficult. to sing because of its many sustained 
pianissimo tones. After the last sweet note has died 
away like a sigh, Ortrud, who is still seated on the steps 
beneath, calls to Elsa in a pleading voice. She appeals 


“LOHENGRIN” 330 


to the latter's sympathy by announcing herself as “that 
most unhappy woman, Ortrud,” wife to the disgraced 
Frederick. “We are cursed by God and man, and wel- 
comed nowhere.” Thus speaks the sorceress; and Elsa, 
in the goodness of her heart, takes pity and impulsively 
offers to receive the outcast. She retires from the bal- 
cony and presently opens the door below to welcome 
Ortrud, who in this short interim has sung some splendid 
phrases of gloating animosity. But she kneels like a 
humble slave before the unsuspecting Elsa, who invites 
her to the wedding and also promises to induce Lohengrin 
to pardon Frederick. 

As an expression of gratitude, Orirud now offers to 
exert the power of prophecy for Elsa’s benefit. Prophecy 
and sorcery are regarded in different lights: the latter 
is wicked and implies collusion with the evil one, while 
the “prophetic eye” is a gift to be coveted. Ortrud pre- 
tends to possess this power. She forewarns Elsa against 
too great confidence in her hero, and mysteriously hints 
that he may leave as suddenly as he came. These words 
are accompanied by the threatening dark motif, which 
hovers ever near like a lowering cloud. Elsa recoils at 
the thought—this first seed of suspicion—but she soon 
smiles assuredly and sings to Ortrud a lovely song about 
“the faith and trust that knows no doubt.” Wagner’s 
words are as beautiful as his music, and in this composi- 
tion they seem to mount upward on the “‘wings of song” 
like the spontaneous utterance of a pure heart. Elsa puts 
her arms gently about Ortrud and leads her into the 
palace. Frederick, who has kept in the background, 
watches them disappear, and the scene closes with his 
final descant on revenge. 

After his exit the orchestra has a solo, so to speak, 


340 ODE RAV AINID ME SoS ahs 


while the stage is occupied in representing the dawn of 
day. Villagers stroll in one by one, garlands are hung 
in honor of the wedding, and the scene becomes con- 
stantly brighter and more active. ‘The herald appears 
above the gates of the palace and makes three announce- 
ments in the name of the King: First, that Frederick 
of Telramund is banned and shall be befriended by no 
one; second, that the Heaven-favored stranger shall here- 
after be called the guardian of Brabant; and, third, that 
this hero shall lead them soon to “victorious war.’ Then 
follows a chorus about the Heaven-sent guardian of 
Brabant, after which there is a momentary commotion 
caused by Frederick, who, in spite of the ban against him, 
comes forward and asserts that he will defy their much- 
lauded hero and will open their eyes to his duplicity. 

But this incident is forgotten in the gorgeous scene 
which now commences. The wedding-guests come slowly 
from the palace, and wend their way in stately procession 
toward the church. Their course is accompanied by a 
march of pontifical solemnity, which attains its grandest 
beauty when E/sa comes down the great stairway clad 
in robes of regal splendor. All voices join in praise for 
“Elsa of Brabant.” 

The procession proceeds to the church; the music in- 
creases in strength, when suddenly there is a discord. 
Elsa is confronted at the church entrance by Ortrud, who 
fiercely declares she will no longer follow like an atten- 
dant; that she is the one to whom people should bow 
instead of Elsa, whose future lord comes of a land and 
family which he dare not tell! El/sa is dumbfounded by 
this sudden onslaught from the woman she has _ be- 
friended. But Ortrud maintains her position, and actually 
defies Elsa to ask the hero his name. This attack is 





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EAMES AS “ELSA” IN “LOHENGRIN”’ 









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“LOHENGRIN” 341 


diverted by the ceremonious entrance of the King and 
Lohengrin, to whom Elsa hastens with her grievance. 
Ortrud is promptly ordered aside, and the procession 
resumes its march. But again the solemn cathedral music 
crashes into a discord. Frederick, the despised one, dares 
to rush before the King and bar the way as he begs them 
to harken to his words. There is great indignation over 
the interruption, but Frederick so intensely cries for 
justice that at last even the King listens as he charges 
Lohengrin with sorcery. He sustains the charge by 
demanding Lohengrin to tell his name, if he be an 
honest man; if he can not do this there must be some 
dark secret to hide. All turn to the hero expectantly, 
but he only defends himself by saying that he has proven 
his worth in mortal combat, according to ancient usage, 
and that he will not answer Frederick nor even the King 
—only Elsa shall be answered this question. He turns 
to her and finds her trembling with agitation. The or- 
chestra tells us her thoughts, for we hear the Ortrud- 
theme and dark motif writhing in and out like venomous 
serpents. A murmuring sort of chorus about the strange 
secret which the hero so zealously guards is gradually 
resolved into a song of allegiance and belief. The King 
declares Frederick unworthy of consideration. But 
during the jubilant chorus which follows, that Miserable 
steals up to Elsa and casts his final poison-shaft. He tells 
her that if Lohengrin were once wounded, “merely 
pricked in the finger,” he would then bestow upon her 
full confidence and never leave. Frederick further says 
he will “linger near the coming night,’ and when she 
calls will enter and commit the deed without harm to 
Lohengrin. Elsa spurns the tempter away, and Lohen- 
grin, who perceives him at her side, bids him forever 


342 OPERA AND WTsS.5) ARS 


begone. But finding E/sa even more agitated than before, 
he asks in the presence of all if she wishes to be told 
his name. She remembers her vow, and in tones of 
exultation declares that love is greater than doubt. The 
magnificent march music is again resumed, and they 
enter the minster without further incident, excepting the 
defiant gaze of Ortrud as Elsa passes; and while the 
curtain descends we hear again, half hidden in the orches- 
tra, the terrible dark motif. 

There is a brilliant orchestral introduction to the third 
act, which represents the marriage fete. Its tempo and 
rhythm are positively gay, tho this is an adjective seldom 
appropriate to Wagner. But the hilarity has subsided 
by the time the curtain rises: the trumpets and cymbals 
are hushed, and the gentlest of music greets our ears 
as we look upon the bridal chamber. The voices are 
at first distant, but gradually approach, and the effect 
of their song steals over us like a potent charm. It is 
the wedding-march—the ‘Lohengrin Wedding-March”’! 
We all know the power of that music. There are some 
compositions which become absorbed by the world like 
important inventions or discoveries. People require cer- 
tain musical forms of expression as they do artificial 
light, and we pity those who did without this ‘“Wedding- 
March,” or Chopin’s “Funeral March,” or the Schubert 
“Serenade,” as we pity our ancestors who made shift 
with tallow candles instead of incandescent lamps. The 
charm of the ‘Wedding-March” is not diminished 
because we know it so well. With Wagner as with 
Beethoven, every hearing reveals new beauties. When 
the chorus at last leaves Elsa and Lohengrin alone, we 
echo his first words: “The sweet song now is ended.” 

But our regrets are quickly appeased by the delicious 


“LOHENGRIN? 343 


love-duet which follows. It is a scene of rapt delight— 
of happiness too great to last. Not in vain did we have 
the dark motif jangled in our ears when the curtain last 
descended; it meant trouble in the coming act, as we 
soon perceive. /sa wishes she knew his name—yjust to 
speak it lovingly as he does hers. Then Lohengrin points 
to the open window through which the moonlight streams 
upon them, and he sings of the perfumed air which they 
enjoy without questioning its cause or source; thus, he 
says, should they love. The exquisite melody of this 
song seems to exhale from his heart like fragrance from 
a flower. It is redolent of tenderest love. 

The nobility and beauty of Lohengrin’s character so 
impress themselves, that Elsa feels oppressed with her 
own unworthiness. She wishes she might do something 
heroic to prove her love. For instance, if he would 
confide to her his secret, she would guard it so faithfully 
that death itself could not wrest it from her! Very 
sweetly and beautifully does she coax for this token of 
trust on his part. Lohengrin replies most gently that he 
has trusted her already by believing that she would keep 
her vow. Then he says she little knows how much she 
is to him; that no earthly honor—not the King’s king- 
dom—could replace what he has left. Only Elsa, his 
bride, can recompense the sacrifice; for not from night 
and grief does he come, but from a home of joy and 
pride. 

Like a flash does this remind Elsa of Ortrud’s pro- 
phecy that he may leave her. The Ortrud-theme swoops 
down upon the orchestra and settles there like an ill- 
omened bird. The director’s baton may send it away 
- for a moment, but down it comes again, and the dark 
motif with it. Poor Elsa becomes almost frenzied. She 


344 ORT RATAN DBE Seok 


believes Lohengrin will long for his beautiful home, 
which even now he can not forget. She sees in her 
mind’s eye the swan-boat approaching to take him away. 
Lohengrin speaks reassuringly ; but the spell is upon her, 
and nothing—nothing can give her peace but to know 
the truth. With mounting tones, the last one of which 
is like an outcry, she asks the fatal question. Lohengrin 
gives an exclamation of grief. 

At this moment the door is burst open by Frederick, 
who with drawn sword has come to wound the hero, or, 
more probably, to kill him. Elsa at once recognizes his 
intention, and frantically bids Lohengrin defend himself. 
With a single thrust he kills his would-be assassin. 

This intense and tragic climax is followed by a lull. 
Elsa has fallen half-swooning on the couch, and Lohen- 
grin stands sorrowfully to one side. He at last exclaims 
slowly and sadly: “Now is our sweet joy fled” ; and then 
we hear in the orchestra, faint and beautiful as a memory, 
that recent love-duet. It is only a fragment, a fleeting 
thought, but so touching and pathetic that we could weep 
with Lohengrin for the harmony that is gone. 

The last act is short and almost entirely taken up by 
Lohengrin’s story and farewell. The scenery is the same 
as in the first act, and the entire chorus of noblemen and 
soldiers again assemble before the King. They have not 
yet heard of the tragic event which ended the last act, 
and are therefore surprized when a bier is carried in and 
placed solemnly before them. It bears the body of 
Frederick. Vhey are still more surprized when Elsa 
enters, pale and dejected, and then their hero, who appears 
equally sad. But surprize reaches its climax when they 
hear him announce that he can not be their leader. 

Lohengrin wastes no words. After the first assertion 


“TOHENGRIN” 348 


he informs them of Frederick’s death; whereupon all 
voices declare his fate to be most just, and the body is 
removed. Lohengrin then announces that Elsa, his wife, 
has broken the vow which they all heard her make, and 
he has come before them to answer her question and 
dispel the mad suspicion which a wily tempter inplanted 
in her heart. They shall all learn his name and heritage, 
and may then judge whether he was worthy of their 
trust. The people wonder with awe-hushed voices what 
revelation is in store, and then there floats in the orches- 
tra the soft tremolo of the swan-music, as Lohengrin tells 
them of a distant land called Montsalvat, where is a 
radiant temple. And in this temple is guarded a sacred 
vessel which possesses wonder-powers. A dove descends 
from heaven once every year to renew its marvelous 
strength. This treasure-blessing is called the “Grail,” 
and to its chosen votaries a matchless power is given. 
These knights of the Grail are sent abroad as champions 
of innocence and truth, and they may tarry so long as 
their name is unknown. But the Grail’s blessing is too 
pure and holy to be regarded by common eyes, and if 
disclosed its champion must leave at once. Lohengrin 
adds that this penalty now falls on him, for he is a 
knight of the Grail: his father, great Parsifal, wears its 
crown, and “I am Lohengrin.” 

As in the first prelude and swan-song, the harmonies 
of this last great recital seem not of earth but from 
another sphere; they linger and abide with us like a 
beautiful blessing. This silver-clad knight of the Grail 
has been singing of a hallowed mystery whose purity 
and spirituality are revealed more in the music than by 
the words. After bidding farewell to the hapless Elsa, 
from whom he must part in spite of her piteous appeals, 


346 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


there comes gliding upon the river the swan-boat. He 
sings a sad welcome to the swan, and then announces 
to Elsa that could he have remained one year, through 
the mercy of the Grail, her brother would have returned. 
He hands her his sword and horn and ring to give this 


brother if ever he comes back. The sword and horn will 


impart strength and victory, and the ring shall remind 
him of “Lohengrin who loved Elsa and was her cham- 
pion.” 

A jarring interruption is now created by Ortrud, who 
cries out with reckless triumph that the swan who serves 
Lohengrin is the bewitched brother, and that Elsa has 
herself to thank for causing the hero’s departure, which 
forever prevents the young Duke’s return. On hearing 
this mocking invection from the sorceress, Lohengrin 
clasps his hands in a fervent prayer, which is at once 
answered. A dove descends from heaven and touches 
the swan, which is immediately changed into the young 
heir. He rushes forward to embrace his sister, while 
Lohengrin steps into the boat, which is drawn away by 
the dove. It floats silently down the beautiful river, and 
the hero stands sorrowfully leaning upon his silver shield. 
This is our last glimpse of Lohengrin, the Knight of the 
Grail. 


CHAPTER XXIII 
“ATDA” 


S IN “Carmen” every measure scintillates with 
A the sunshine of Spain, so in “Aida” every phrase 
seems shadowed by the mysteries of Egypt. A compara- 
tive study of these two operas will forcibly impress one 
with the power of music to express nationality. “Aida” 
carries one to a distant land and centuries back; but this 
power of breathing the musical life of ancient Egypt 
into the still form of a libretto is the culmination of 
modern art. Guiseppe Verdi, the greatest modern Italian 
composer, had written twenty-six operas before he wrote 
exida. 

A tender, wistful strain high up in the violins forms 
the opening of the prelude. With this first faint phrase the 
composer seems to awaken from her long sleep the muse 
of Egyptian music. Like the hero of fairy lore, Verdi, 
the prince of melody, has penetrated a realm of slumber- 
ing harmonies. They are at first subdued, dazed, and 
bewildered with themes mingled and woven together like 
exquisite cobwebs. The conductor’s wand gently dis- 
perses these clinging meshes of sound, the curtain is 
lifted, and we are ushered into the musical life of an 
ancient civilization. 

We see a hall in the palace at Memphis, and Ramfis, 
the high priest, converses with Rhadames, a distinguished 
soldier. They talk of the impending war against Ethio- 
pia, and it is intimated that Rhadames may be chosen to 
lead the Egyptians. But the words and song are of little 

347 


348 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


interest compared to the orchestral accompaniment. This 
is somber and subdued; the notes are of equal length, 
and the intervals seem of geometric exactitude like the 
diagram of an astrologer. 

Ramfis goes out leaving Rhadames joyous over the 
prospect of becoming a general. He thinks of his be- 
loved Aida, to whom he will return laden with laurels. 
“Celeste Aida!” is the title of this great romanza. Like 
all love-songs it is legato, andante, and pianissimo, but at 
the same time noticeably original and characteristic. The 
harmonies are constructed with rigid grandeur, but soft- 
ened and beautified by a tender melody that rests upon 
them like moonlight on the pyramids. While he is lost 
in thoughts of Aida, the Princess Amneris enters. She 
inquires the cause of his radiant expression, and insinuat- 
ingly wonders if it is some dream of love. Mhadames 
only replies that he has hopes of martial honors, and is 
therefore happy. The Princess secretly loves Rhadames, 
and her questions are based on jealousy, which is revealed 
in the nervous, agitated theme that accompanies this duet. 
Her suspicions are further aroused by the entrance of 
Aida. As the heroine approaches we hear again the pen- 
sive theme that opened the prelude. It takes on a new 
and greater meaning, for Aida is a captive slave, an exile, 
and the music reminds us of some great longing that 
vainly strives to express itself. This effect is due to the 
fact that the musical cadence is left unresolved. 

Aida must have the dark complexion of the Ethiopian, 
and very few prima donnas look well under coffee-colored 
cosmetic; but Madame Nordica’s appearance did not 
suffer from the application. This Aida is beautiful, and 
Rhadames can scarce conceal the joy of her presence. 
The captive also looks down to hide her emotion. But 


“AIDA” 3249 


Amuneris has detected every glance, and again that jealous 
theme sweeps like a flame over the orchestra. 

The Princess addresses her slave by sisterly names, 
and asks the cause of her downcast looks. Aida says 
she grieves because of the war against her native land. 
There follows a trio wherein Amneris fosters her 
jealousy, while Aida and Rhadames tremble lest their 
secret be discovered. 

Sounds of martial music prelude the entrance of the 
king and his suite. When they are assembled a mes- 
senger comes forward to announce that the Ethiopians 
are marching toward Egypt’s capital under the leadership 
of their king, dmonasro. Upon hearing this name Aida 
exclaims to herself, “My father!’ and we thereby learn 
that she is a princess, but has concealed the fact from 
her captors. The Egyptians impulsively shout “To war!” 
and Ithadames is proclaimed their leader. They sing a 
war-hymn which is so inspiring that even Aida joins in 
this prayer for victory to Rhadames. After a grand 
climax all go out excepting the heroine. 

“Return victorious!” She repeats this last sweeping 
phrase, and shudders at the words, for success to Rhada- 
mes implies defeat to her father. This distressing thought 
agitates the music like the passing of a great ship over 
tranquil waters. The ensuing melody rises and falls like 
waves in the wake of a vessel. Aida realizes that she 
can not pray for either lover or father. “Was there ever 
a heart so oppressed!’ Her song is like a wail, and the 
accompaniment introduces a pagan use of the monotone 
that gives startling effects. “Pieta, pieta!’’ are the final 
words of Aida’s great solo. 

She goes off, and the scene changes to an interior view 
of the temple of Vulcan. It is a brilliant setting, with 


350 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


solid columns and golden statues, mysterious colored 
lights and fuming incense, priests and priestesses in glit- 


tering costumes; but the music of this consecration-scene _ 


reveals more barbaric splendor than the surroundings. 
The first sounds are the full, pulsating chords of a harp, 
and from an inner sanctum the grand priestess sings with 
rich soprano tones a weird refrain that is weighted with 
mystery. The priests in front answer in subdued, awe- 
hushed voices. Three times the wondrous song and 
answer are repeated, after which the priestesses perform 
a sacred dance around the altar. The music of this 
dreamy dance has the most astonishing progressions, but 
at the same time maintains an imposing solemnity. Dur- 
ing the dance Rhadames is led to the altar, where a silver 
veil is placed over his head. Ramfis, the high priest, 
charges him with the welfare of the Egyptian army; and 
then follows a splendid prayer that Ramfis starts like a 
sacred fire. It reaches Rhadames, who sings in a higher 
key, and then it spreads and fills the great temple; bassos, 
tenors, soloists, and chorus take it up in turn and form 
one mighty rondo. Like a response from heaven comes 
the chant of the grand priestess from within. Her in- 
spired refrain with its harp accompaniment alternates 
with the exalted prayer in front. This consecration- 
scene has little to do with the plot of the story, but it 
contains some of Verdi’s finest music. 

Several months are supposed to elapse before the second 
act, which opens with a scene in the apartment of 
Ammneris. Maids are robing the Princess for a festive 
occasion, and we learn by their chorus that Rhadames 
will to-day return from victorious war. This scene is 
monopolized by the stringed instruments and female 
voices. A tropical indolence characterizes the choruses, 


ee 


PAT DA? 351 


with their abundant harp accompaniment. Ammeris ever 
and anon breaks forth with an expansive theme express- 
ing her unconquered love for Rhadames. To divert their 
mistress a group of Moorish slaves perform a lively, 
grotesque dance, for which Verdi has written music of 
intoxicating witchery. It is crisp as the snapping of 
fingers and uncivilized as the beating of bamboo reeds— 
a veritable savage revel that is nevertheless graceful and 
delicate. The chorus resume their dreamy praise of 
the hero, and Amneris continues her moody thoughts of 
love. 

Like an electric flash from a sultry sky does the 
entrance of dida affect the musical atmosphere. At sight 
of the beautiful captive, Amneris again rages with jeal- 
ousy, as is plainly indicated by the conflicting themes in 
the orchestra. With subtle devices the Princess seeks 
to entrap her rival. She pretends a deep sympathy for 
Aida’s grief over the vanquished Ethiopians, and adds 
that “Egypt also has cause to mourn, for our brave 
leader, Rhadames, is among the slain.” This treacherous 
falsehood is foisted so suddenly that Aida loses caution 
and reveals her emotion. Ammneris cries out in fury: 
“Tremble, slave! thy secret is discovered!’ She informs 
Aida that Rhadames lives, and that she, Pharaoh’s 
daughter, loves the hero and “will not brook the rivalry 
of a slave!’ Amneris threatens death as the punishment 
for such audacious love. ‘The proud captive stands for 
a moment in defiance; but realizing the futility of such 
action, she humbly pleads for pardon. In this song the 
composer admirably simulates a savage dearth of com- 
pass and harmony—an effect of crude simplicity that 1s 
charming and touching. The scene is interrupted by a 
song of victory from the streets, a signal for the festivi- 


352 OPERA AND TIS STARS 


ties to begin. After commanding the Ethiopian to fol- 
low as a menial in the celebration, Amneris goes out. 
Aida closes the scene with the same prayer to Heaven 
“Pieta!’’ that ended the first act. 

A noisy march introduces the next scene, which rep- 
resents a grand avenue in Egypt’s capital. At the back 
of the stage is a triumphal arch and at one side a throne. 
The greater part of this act is spectacular, and after 
an opening chorus the orchestra has for some time entire 
charge of the music. The march from “Aida” is almost 
as popular as the Faust March. Its harmonies never 
swerve from the Egyptian type, being always stately 
and substantial as their architecture. 

While the brass instruments are playing with full 
force, we witness the ceremonial entrance of the court, 
with innumerable priests and soldiers, trumpeters, fan- 
bearers standard-bearers, train-bearers, white slaves, 
black slaves, flower-girls, and dancing-girls. There fol- 
lows an elaborate ballet divertissement, clothed in music 
of gay pattern and gaudy design, but light in substance. 
Five lines of continuous staccatos, like so many strings 
of beads, form the opening of this dance music. The 
salient points that impart an unmistakable Egyptian 
atmosphere to this composition are as follows: A savage 
repetition of every musical phrase, a wild predilection 
for the monotone, a limited variety of keys, and a pre- 
ponderant accenting of the rhythm. 

After the dance more soldiers enter, some more slaves, 
more banners, chariots, and sacred images. A chorus 
of welcome to the conquering hero is struck up, and it 
increases in strength and grandeur with the pageantry 
on the stage. It is not merely the crescendo, but the 
glorious swing and rhythm of the melody that so inspires 





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“AIDA” 353 


enthusiasm. When at last Rhadames is borne in on a 
golden palanquin, the climax is stupendous. With a final 
“Gloria!” shouted by every voice the hero comes forward 
to be embraced by the King. A group of Ethiopian 
prisoners are led forward, and Aida with a cry of joy 
recognizes her father. He has disguised himself as a 
common soldier, and does not wish it known that he is 
the defeated king Amonasro. Every one is interested 
in this reunion of Aida with her father, and the Princess 
Amneris secretly rejoices to have them both in her 
power. Amonasro makes a noble plea for mercy, and 
his words are set to music that “droppeth as the gentle 
rain from Heaven.” It is like a tone-translation of 
Shakespeare’s ode to the quality of mercy. Aida and 
the other captives lend their voices to the entreaty. 
Rhadames, who has been observing Aida, but dare not 
address her, is moved by his love to ask for the prisoner’s 
release. The King feels bound to grant the hero’s re- 
quest, but finally decides to retain Aida and her father 
as hostages of peace. As a final honor the King presents 
his daughter to Rhadames, and adds that by her side he 
shall some day reign over Egypt. The act closes with 
another grand ensemble. Ammneris gloats over her rival’s 
subjection, Rhadames longs for Aida but dare not oppose 
the King, and the heroine bemoans her fate. The priests, 
- people, soldiers, and prisoners praise the King, the trum- 
pets blare forth the “Aida March,’ and the curtain 
descends. 

Act III is the most. beautiful both scenically and dra- 
matically. It pictures the banks of the Nile at night. 
An illuminated temple is at one side, and we see the 
-silvery river winding its way amid palms and rushes 
far into the distance. Not only is the landscape 


254 OPERA VANDA S its LARS 


bathed in “softened light,’ but also the music imparts 
an unmistakable effect of moonlight. A faint violin 
pizzicato that vibrates but never changes position is 
maintained throughout the introduction, while the other 
instruments call up weird sounds of the night—the palm- 
trees rustling together and the plaintive cry of some 
river-bird—then all is still: only that fluttering moon- 
beam holds the senses. 

The silence is broken by a solemn chant from within 
the temple, and one soprano voice soars out alone in an 
incantation, mysterious and imposing as an oracle. A 
royal barge glides to the river’s bank, and Amnerts with 
her maids and the high-priest Ramfis betake themselves 
to the temple, where the Princess offers prayers for her 
coming marriage. The sphinx-like song of the grand 
priestess is again heard, and then every sound is hushed 
excepting the dreamy pizzicato movement in the violins 
that so resembles the flitting of moonbeams. 

Ere long the solitary tones of the Aida-theme arise 
from the stillness like a spirit of night. Never before 
have we realized the full beauty of this melody, for 
amid the blare and brightness of other harmonies it has 
been obscured like a sensitive flower. But here in the 
solitude and darkness it unfolds itself like some glorious 
night bloom. With cautious steps the heroine enters. 
Rhadames has told her to meet him, and Aida wonders 
what greeting he will have for her. If it is but to say 
farewell, then “‘Nilus, the mighty river, shall quiet for- 
ever the exile’s grief.” For the present she plunges into 
a flood of memory about her native land, a stream of 
words that gently flow through a forest of beautiful 
harmonies. It is a song of homesickness that soothes 
tho it saddens. 


“AIDA” 355 


While still under the spell of this music Aida is 
startled by the entrance of her father. He also sings of 
their distant home, but with an underlying purpose. He 
says they may yet return; that it is in her power to save 
Ethiopia, to regain her throne, her love, and to vanquish 
her rival Amneris. The father has been quick to detect 
the love between Aida and Rhadames. Amonasro an- 
nounces that his people are prepared to renew their attack 
and that success 1s assured if they can learn by what path 
the Egyptians will march. He wishes his daughter to 
win, by fair means or false, this secret from Rhadames. 
Aida at first refuses to act this part of treachery, where- 
upon Amonasro chills her with his curse. He says she 
is no longer his daughter, “No longer princess of Ethio- 
pia, but a slave of the Pharaohs!” The proud blood of 
the captive is aroused by this epithet. She entreats her 
father to recall his words, for “ “Patria mia’ (‘my coun- 
try’) is more.to me than my love. I will obey.” The 
accompaniment presents an unvaried monotone in the 
treble, while beneath it there is a pathetic melody half 
hidden by the upper octaves like romance suppressed by 
duty. Amonasro conceals himself behind palm-trees as 
Rhadames approaches. 

Never has the joy of meeting been more admirably 
expressed in music than in Rhadames’s greeting of Aida. 
It is a flight of song as spontaneous and free as the 
flight of a released bird. He tells her that he will not 
marry the Princess, but must start at once on a second 
war; and if this time victorious he will tell the King of 
his love and will claim Aida as the reward of his valor. 
It is a brave plan, but she quickly discovers the weak 
~ point. The nervous, inflammatory theme of jealousy 
that accompanied Ammneris in the first act again arises 


356 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


like a hot breath from the orchestra. ‘Aida well knows 
that the Princess would wreak vengeance “like the light- 
ning of heaven.” There is only one course that will 
unite the lovers, and this is to fly—“Fugire!’—to fair 
Ethiopia, Aida’s native land. She coaxes and entreats 
in phrases of delirious, dream-like beauty descriptive of 
that wondrous land—*“There where the virgin forests 
rise ‘mid fragrance softly stealing.’ A halcyon peace 
pervades the music, and its harmonies are strange and 
rare like the perfume of some exotic flower. Khadames 
demurs, but the power of her song is irresistible, and he 
soon consents to leave Egypt for her sake. There is 
nothing half-way about his decision when once made. 
The orchestra music rises in emphatic, resolute crescen- 
dos that are gloriously inspiring, and the singer’s voice 
is carried forward like a rider on his steed. The music 
recurs to the first impulsive theme of greeting. It is 
given in full chords, and the soprano joins with the tenor. 
Every note is accented and the crescendos are augmented. 
Both voices and orchestra mount upward and soar away 
on one final, sustained note. 

As the lovers start to go, Aida asks, “By what route 
do the Egyptians march? We must avoid them in our 
flight.” Rhadames names the path, whereupon Amonasro 
steps forward announcing that “the king of Ethiopia’ 
has overheard this important secret. He promises royal 
honors to Rhadames; but the hero is overwhelmed with 
the realization that he has betrayed his country. Ven- 
geance falls upon him at once, for Amnerts and the high 
priest have also overheard. They come from the temple 
and denounce Rhadames as a traitor. He is seized, but 
‘Amonasro and Aida escape. 

The first scene of the fourth act reveals a hall in the 


“ATDA” 367 


palace. At the back is a large portal leading to the 
subterranean court of justice. Ammneris holds the stage 
alone during the greater part of this scene. The orches- 
tra preludes it with the familiar theme of jealousy that 
indicates the ensuing action as clearly as the title to a 
chapter. KRhadames is to-day awaiting judgment, and 
the Princess, as a last resort, offers to secure his pardon 
if he will promise to forget Aida. The hero firmly re- 
fuses the proffered love of Amneris. He believes Aida is 
dead and prefers to die also, Very grandly does the 
music depict Ammneris’s outraged feelings. She flings a 
fusillade of wrathful tones, every one bearing the sting 
of sharp accent. But when he is gone her pride and 
jealousy wilt under the warmth of genuine love. She 
sees him led to his.doom in the underground courts and 
hears the priests and judges chanting his name as traitor. 
This scene resembles the “Miserere”’ in “Il Trovatore.”’ 
Three times the unseen, chorus is followed by the soprano 
in front, who sings an anguished phrase that starts with 
a high note and ends with a palpitating, gasping de- 
crescendo that is almost identical with the music of 
“Leonore.”’ The priests condemn Rhadames to be buried 
alive. As they again pass through the hall, Amneris 
pleads and implores for mercy, but it is now too late. 
No power can save the hero. 

The last scene of the opera is very short, but it is 
the most important. It represents two floors, the upper 
one being a splendid and brilliant temple interior, while 
beneath it is the crypt—gloomy and terrible. This is 
the tomb of Rhadames, who has just been immured. The 
priests above are placing the final stone as the curtain 
rises and the hero is seen below reclining on the steps. 
He is thinking of Aida while resignedly awaiting his 


358 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


slow and awful death. Suddenly a voice calls him, and 
Aida herself appears to his wondering gaze. She had 
heard of his fate, and to prove her love has secretly re- 
turned and hidden in this tomb to die with him. The 
following song of the lovers has been humorously referred 
to as the “starvation duet.” The fact of this appellation 
only reveals how celebrated is the composition. It is 
more generally known as “the duet from ‘Aida.’”’ There 
are other duets in the opera, but when another is meant 
it is designated; this is the great one. Its pathetic har- 
monies are mingled with the solemn chant of the grand 
priestess in the temple above and the music of a sacred 
dance. Aida becomes delirious, and sees in her dreams 
the gates of heaven opening. Indeed, the music is 
exquisite enough to make any one dream of heaven. 
With soft, sweet tones and bated breath Aida sings till 
she dies. 

Instead of closing with a crescendo, as do most operas, 
the final of “‘Aida” becomes ever softer and fainter, like 
a departing spirit. The brass and wood instruments 
have long since retired, only the violins and harp keep 
up a gentle vibrating accompaniment like the flutter of 
cherubs’ wings. The curtain descends very slowly, and 
the last notes of the violin are written doubly pianissimo. 
The muse of Egyptian music glides away as silently as 
she came. 


CU ARTE RWEX XV, 
OLED Bar rarer BON) Li; 


T IS not surprizing that the massacre of St. Bar- 
I tholomew should have attracted such a composer as 
Giacomo Meyerbeer. The terrible scene immediately 
suggests a blaze of orchestral chords, seething strings, 
and shrieking brass, a style in which Meyerbeer delighted. 
He secured the collaboration of the celebrated French 
dramatist, Eugene Scribe, who apparently went to work 
at this libretto by writing the fourth act first and then 
forcing the preceding situations to fit together as best 
they would. The result is not wholly satisfactory; but 
where the plot is vague the music is clear and strong 
enough to carry our emotions over chasms of incon- 
sistencies. 

The great theme of the opera is the Huguenot hymn, 
a thrilling song of faith, with firm, bold harmonies that 
express unswerving belief. This hymn is used in the 
overture with grand effect. It is sustained and upheld 
clear and strong amid the murmurings and attacks of 
surrounding variations until it finally bursts forth in un- 
trammeled splendor like the supremacy of religious faith. 

The curtain rises upon a banquet-hall in the mansion 
of Count de Nevers, who is a gay young nobleman of 
Touraine, the province of France, in which the first two 
acts occur. De Nevers is giving a supper to his comrades, 
and the first chorus is the celebrated drinking-song, a 
refrain so abounding in good cheer that it predisposes 
one in favor of the whole opera. The revelers are all 
Romanists, with the exception of Raoul de Nangis, a 

359 


360 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


young Huguenot, who because of recent promotion in 
the army has been included among the guests. De Nevers 
proposes a toast to “our sweethearts,” and gaily adds 
that he must soon forego such frivolities as he is to be 
married. Some one suggests that they all recount their 
love affairs, and Raoul is requested to begin. He relates 
an adventure wherein he rescued a beautiful lady from 
the rude insults of some boisterous students. He has 
not seen her since and knows not her name, but she 
dwells—in his heart. His glowing description of the 
heroine is a verbal portrait framed in music of golden 
beauty. It is the best tenor solo of the opera. 

After this love-story some surprize is caused by the 
entrance of Marcel, a Huguenot soldier, who is Raoul’s 
faithful attendant and has followed his young master to 
this banquet merely to be near and watch over him. 
Marcel much disapproves of this “feasting in the camp of 
the Philistines,’ as he terms it, and by way of atonement 
he sings in a loud voice that fervid hymn which the 
Huguenots always clarion forth when in danger. Raoul 
begs his friends to excuse the rough soldier, and they 
promptly attest their good will by inviting Marcel to 
drink. He declines the wine, but consents to sing for 
them. His song has a wild refrain like the firing of 
musketry, “Piff-paff-piff,’ and it is a celebrated bass aria. 

When this whizzing composition is ended a servant 
informs the host that a strange visitor would like to 
speak with him privately. De Nevers at first refuses to 
see any one; but on learning that it is a veiled lady he 
changes his mind and goes out, after laughingly announc- 
ing that he is thus constantly sought by handsome women. 
During his absence the others joke about the incognita 
and handle her reputation lightly. They look through a 


Pa Ue WE NOS? 361 


window and see her conversing with De Nevers in his 
private apartment. At sight of her face Raoul recoils, 
for this clandestine visitor is none other than the heroine 
of his romance—the beauty to whom he had lost his 
heart. His ideal is shattered by the discovery. When 
De Nevers returns the audience learns from an aside 
remark that the lady was his prospective bride, Valentine 
de St. Bris, and that she came to beg release from her 
promise. He has reluctantly complied, but does not 
inform his guests of the matter. At this moment a richly 
attired young page from the palace presents himself. It 
is Urban, the contralto role, who, after bowing gracefully 
on all sides sings a charming and celebrated aria, ““Nobil 
donna,’’—‘“‘a noble lady sends by me a missive to one of 
these gentlemen.” Such is the substance of this exquisite 
song with its chivalrous melody, surrounded by rococo 
embellishments that seem as appropriate to the pretty 
page as are his Louis Quinze slippers and point-lace ruffs. 
The note is addressed to Raoul, a fact that occasions some 
surprize. The young Huguenot reads aloud what sounds 
like a practical joke, for the paper tells that a court car- 
riage is in waiting to convey him blindfolded to an un- 
named destination. His companions urge him to go, for 
they have recognized the seal as belonging to Queen Mar- 
garet of Touraine; but Raoul does not know this. He, 
however, accepts their advice, and allows himself to be 
blindfolded in spite of protests from Marcel. They sing 
a bewitching ensemble that is finally resolved into the 
familiar drinking-song. With these rollicking measures 
Raoul is led away by the page and the curtain descends. 

The opening of the second act is like a musical mirage 
—tone-fantasies suspended in the air. We see before us 
the luxuriant palace gardens where Margaret, queen of 


362 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


Touraine, is surrounded by her maids of honor. Terraces 
and fountains, jeweled hands and feathered fans, vibrant 
harps and caroling flute combine to form an effect of 
elegant repose. Margaret is the role for colorature so- 
prano, in contradistinction to the heroine, Valentine, 
which is for dramatic soprano. The music of the queen 
is very beautiful and so difficult that it requires a great 
artist, altho there is but the one important scene. It is 
considered by some to be Madame Melba’s best role. 
Her first aria is about “this fair land,” and we inci- 
dentally learn that she deplores the existing dissension 
between Catholics and Huguenots, the one blot upon the 
perfect peace of Touraine. Her court ladies presently 
sing an idyllic refrain, and Margaret joins in their song; 
but while the others abide by the simple melody she decks 
it out with colorature spangles quite befitting a queen. 
After another florid solo the favorite maid of honor, 
Valentine de St. Bris, enters. She wears a riding cos- 
tume and has just returned from her venturesome inter- 
view with De Nevers, who, as she joyfully announces, 
has released all claim to her hand. We soon learn that 
Valentine, the unknown heroine of Raoul’s romantic 
adventure, became as infatuated with her rescuer as he 
with her—but she, it seems knows his name. At any 
rate we learn that she has confided in the Queen and that 
her gracious Majesty is already planning to marry the 
two: a plan that greatly appeals to her because it will 
unite the two leading families of Catholics and Hugue- 
nots. The Queen rather delights in playing the good 
fairy, and for this reason has summoned Raoul in the 
mysterious fashion witnessed in the first act. Before he 
arrives there is another chorus, called the “song of the 
bathers,” which is sung by a group of the Queen’s ladies 


“THE HUGUENOTS” 363 


at the back of the garden near a restful pool o’ershadowed 
by tall trees. A harp accompaniment like rustling leaves 
plays around the melody, which is of eolian sweetness, 
until suddenly, like a fitful breeze, there comes an elfish 
measure all in the treble. After a brief disporting of this 
air-sprite we hear again the soft eolian harmonies, which 
rise and fall until lulled into silence. 

The page Urban now enters and announces that a 
stranger is approaching, and the maids of honor gather 
around as he tells of this young cavalier who comes with 
blindfolded eyes and knows not his destination. Urban’s 
song is brimming over with mischievous coquetry. Its 
opening words are simply, “No, no, no, no, no, no, you 
never heard so strange a tale.” The court ladies are all 
in a flutter of curiosity when Raoul is led in, and they 
would like to see the outcome of this adventure; but the 
Queen orders them away. 

Now follows a scene that is full of quaint themes and 
ingenious duets, a musical branch with many blossoms. 
Raoul is permitted to remove the bandage from his eyes. 
He looks with wonder upon the beautiful scene, and then 
addresses elegant phrases of adoration to the fair lady 
before him. She is not devoid of coquetry—this Queen 
of Touraine—and for some moments there is a graceful 
game between the two in which the shuttlecock of love is 
tossed upon the battledores of music. But it is only a 
game, and the toy is presently dropped. Urban enters 
to announce that some noblemen of Touraine have come 
to attend the Queen. Raoul is amazed to learn the lady’s 
identity, and Margaret hastens to inform him that in 
order to unite the Huguenots and Catholics of her prov- 
ince, she has arranged a marriage between him and the 
daughter of St. Bris. Raoul bows obedience to her wish. 


364 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


The Catholics and Protestants enter in stately proces- 
sion and group themselves on either side of the stage, 
Raoul and Marcel heading the Huguenots, while St. Bris 
and De Nevers represent the opposite side. Margaret wel- 
comes them in musical phrases that are right royal. She 
informs St. Bris and De Nevers that the King of France 
requests their immediate presence in Paris, and she then 
makes her own request, which is that Huguenots and 
Catholics shall lay aside all enmity and sanction the 
marriage that she has arranged. They sing a splendid 
refrain calling upon heaven to witness their vow of future 
fellowship. This scene contains some fine climaxes, and 
several brilliant cadenzas for the Queen. Margaret sends 
for Valentine, and expects Raoul to be thrilled with 
delight when he recognizes the heroine of his romance. 
But as Valentine comes forward, Raoul gives an excla- 
mation of indignant surprize, for he thinks some great 
insult is implied in asking him to marry this woman who 
secretly visits De Nevers and who has been the subject 
of jests. Without explanation he firmly refuses to accept 
her for his bride. The consternation hereby aroused is 
admirably expressed in the music. The first measures 
are hushed, as tho the chorus were dumbfounded; but 
they soon gain their voices and denounce Raoul in ring- 
ing tones. Valentine exclaims, “What have I done to 
earn such disgrace?” and the theme is taken up in grand 
form by the others. Every now and then we catch the 
firm tones of Marcel who amid all this dissension is 
singing his Huguenot hymn. St. Bris draws his sword, 
but the Queen forbids a duel in her presence, and reminds 
him that he must go at once to Paris. Rawuol declares 
he will follow and is ready to fight St. Bris at any time. 


“THE HUGUENOTS” 365 


The action and music increase in strength until the cur- 
tain falls. 

Act III pictures an open square in Paris, the Pré-aux- 
Clercs, which extends back to the river. There are two 
taverns and a church in the foreground, and the stage 
is filled with a mingled crowd. After an opening chorus 
of promenaders some Huguenot soldiers come forward 
and sing a march that is equally stirring and much resem- 
bles our own “Rally ’round the flag.” It is, however, 
more elaborate, and has a surprizing effect in which the 
upper voices sing a steady accompaniment of “derum- 
de-dum-dum,” while words and melody are in the bass. 
There follows a sharp contrast in the song of some Cath- 
olic maidens on their way to church. Purity and sim- 
plicity are expressed by the slender accompaniment of 
flute and clarionet. The people kneel as they hear this 
“Ave Maria,” but Marcel, who has just entered, refuses 
to do so. The Catholics are angered, while the Huguenots 
side with Marcel. There is a vigorous ensemble in which 
the “Ave Maria” and soldiers’ chorus are admirably com- 
bined, and through it all are heard the disputing cries of 
the two factions. A general scuffle would ensue were it 
not for a sudden diversion in the form of some brightly 
clad gypsies who enter and solicit trade in fortune-telling. 
Their song is as gay as their costume, and they wind up 
with a fantastic dance. The orchestra music is here 
more deserving of attention than the stage picture. The 
principal melody has the quaint conceit of reiterating one 
note through five beets, and then with a quick turn reeling 
on to the next, like a dancer poising on one foot until 
forced to whirl upon the other. 

After this divertissement, St. Bris, his friend Maure- 
vert, and De Nevers come out of the church where they 


366 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


have left Valentine, who, we now learn, is after all to 
marry De Nevers, and this is their wedding-day. The 
bridegroom goes to bring his retinue to escort the bride 
home, and St. Bris felicitates himself for bringing about 
this union which wipes out the disgrace of Raoul’s re- 
fusal. His remarks are interrupted by Marcel, who 
delivers a letter from his master which designates this 
Pré-aux-Clercs as meeting-place and an “hour after sun- 
down” the time for their deferred duel. Maurevert 
suggests to St. Bris that the Huguenot deserves more 
punishment than can be meted out in honorable combat, 
and the two friends retire in consultation. 

The stage is darkened and we hear the curfew bell, 
while a watchman goes through the street chanting a 
drowsy refrain that tells all good people to close their 
doors and retire. Mawurevert and St. Bris again cross 
the stage, and we glean from their few words that a plot 
is brewing for Raoul’s destruction. But Valentine has 
been standing at the church door and overheard their talk. 
She is much alarmed, and wishes to warn Raoul, but 
knows of no way until suddenly she hears and recognizes 
the voice of Marcel. She calls to him, and he asks: ““Who 
calls in the night? Explain at once or I will fire!’ Valen- 
tine quickly thinks to speak the potent name “Raoul.” 
Meyerbeer has very aptly used for this call the interval 
of the perfect fifth, which is known as the cry of nature, 
because it is the most natural interval to fall upon when 
calling in the open air, The milkmaid calling her cows 
or the huckster vending his wares will most often be 
found singing the perfect fifth. 

On hearing the name of his master Marcel is satisfied 
and comes forward to investigate, but Valentine’s face 
is concealed by her bridal veil. She tells him that his 


“THE HUGUENOTS” 367 


master should be well armed and have strong friends 
near in the coming duel, else he will fall the victim of a 
plot. Valentine starts to go, but Marcel detains her 
with the question, “Who art thou?’ She hesitates and 
then answers, “A woman who loves Raoul.” Ina highly 
dramatic aria, whose phrases are like storm-tossed billows 
on a restless deep-sea accompaniment, she confesses that 
in saving the one she loves she has “betrayed her own 
father.” The two voices finally work together as is the 
fashion of duets, and end up with a flourishing climax. 
At this point occurs a famous high C, which the harmony 
requires to be brilliantly sustained and crescendoed 
throughout four measures. It is a tour de force which 
always brings down the house. Valentine now reenters 
the church as the principals and seconds of the duel ap- 
proach. Marcel tries to warn his master, but Raoul will 
not listen to suspicions, for he believes his opponent to 
be honorable. There follows a splendid septet, in which 
Raoul sings the leading refrain, buoyant with youthful 
courage. ‘The ensemble is occasionally interspersed with 
the religious tones of Marcel, who prays Heaven to inter- 
fere. A grand, swinging theme in which all the voices 
move together like a great pendulum, is the final of this 
septet. 

The duel begins, but Marcel, who is on the alert, hears 
approaching footsteps and draws his sword. Maurevert 
enters and cries out as prearranged: “A duel with unfair 
numbers! More ‘Huguenots than Catholics! Help!” 
whereupon his followers rush in and surround Raoul. 
But at this moment the Huguenot soldiers who are merry- 
making in the tavern commence singing their jolly “de- 
rum-de-dum-dum,” whereupon Marcel rushes to the door 
and sings in thunderous tones the Protestant hymn, which 


368 OPE RACAIN DIN S eS 


the soldiers within at once recognize as a signal of dan- 
ger. They hurry out, and then follows a lively commo- 
tion on all sides. But there are more words than blows, 
and the excitement is presently quelled by the ceremonious 
entrance of Queen Margaret who has just arrived in 
Paris. She is much displeased to come upon party dis- 
sension. St. Bris blames Raoul, while the Huguenot 
charges St. Bris with treachery. At this moment Valen- 
tine comes from the church, and Marcel relates how she 
warned him of a plot. There is general amazement on 
hearing this. Raoul now thinks to make some inquiries 
about this lady he had so unhesitatingly condemned, and 
learns how terrible was his mistake. St. Bris enjoys 
telling him that she is the bride of De Nevers, and we 
hear the approaching music of the nuptial barge. An 
illuminated flotilla appears at the back of the stage, and 
De Nevers steps upon the bank. He addresses to Valen- 
tine some gallant phrases of welcome, and escorts her to 
the boat as his splendid retinue sing a joyous wedding- 
march. The curtain falls upon a whirl of gay music. 

Scribe is on terra firma in the fourth act, which is 
really the nucleus of the plot, and is perhaps the most 
dramatic love-scene of any Grand Opera. The curtain 
rises upon an apartment in the house of De Nevers, and 
Valentine is alone. The opening orchestral measures 
seem oppressed with a tuneful despair that is soon ex- 
plained by her song, wherein she bewails this forced 
marriage, for her heart still cherishes Raoul. The hero 
suddenly appears at her door, and Valentine thinks she 
is dreaming until Raoul announces that he has come “like 
a criminal in the night, risking all’ for the sake of see- 
ing her and craving forgiveness. They hear approaching 
footsteps, and Valentine prevails upon him to enter a side 


“THE HUGUENOTS” 369 


room just as her father and husband come in at the main 
door with a company of Catholic noblemen. They are 
too interested in themselves to note Valentine’s agitation, 
and she, being a Catholic, is allowed to remain while her 
father unfolds the awful plan sanctioned by Catherine 
de Medicis to “wipe the Huguenots from the face of the 
earth.” The great theme of this conjuration-scene, 
“blessed is revenge, obey the good cause,” is softly sung 
by St. Bris and then taken up by the others in broad 
harmonies that swell out and sweep forward like a 
mighty torrent. When the tone-waves are again tranquil 
St. Bris bids his friends swear allegiance to the royal 
decree, and all comply with the exception of De Nevers, 
who declares he can not join in such murder. There is 
graceful nobility in his music and fervor in his words. 

The details of the plot are sung by St. Bris in hushed, 
hurried tones: how “to-night when strikes the bell of St. 
Germain,” the Catholics shall rush upon the unsuspecting 
Huguenots. He then admits into the room a group of 
monks, who tie white scarfs upon the conspirators and 
bless their uplifted swords. The music of this scene is 
grandly sustained by the orchestra, but the ensemble is 
difficult and requires much rehearsing, for it abounds 
in surprizing fortes and pianisimos. 

When the conspirators are gone, Raoul starts from his 
hiding-place toward the door, but Valentine intercepts 
him. He wishes to fight for his friends or die with them, 
but she begs him to stay. There follows a thrilling duet 
in which the voices pursue each other with growing in- 
tensity. The tempo is rapid, and the phrases short and 
breathless. The first minor melody is soft, but throb- 
bing with suppressed emotion like the strange light and 
peculiar hush preceding a tempest. Then the music rushes 


370 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


into the major, where it reels and sways like an anchored 
ship that soon must break its moorings. The soprano 
voice rises upon G, A. B flat, B natural, and finally C, 
where all bonds seem loosed and the music rebounds in a 
rapid descending chromatic run. Then comes a furious 
passage in which the orchestra conductor uses his baton 
like a Roman charioteer lashing his steeds. Valentine 
places herself before the door, and in a desperate moment 
she declares, “Thou must not go, for, Raoul—I love 
thee!” This confession is followed by a transporting 
duet that brings oblivion to other memories, Its melli- 
fluous melody is written pianissimo, dolce, legato, amo- 
roso, and the orchestra carries it one measure behind the 
voice, thus keeping the theme constantly in the air like 
a sweet incense. 

A bell in the distance suddenly scatters all lingering 
harmonies. It is the bell of St. Germain, and Raoul is 
aroused to reality. He sings a dramatic refrain about 
duty and honor, but Valentine still entreats him to stay. 
Her song is simple as a lullaby but powerful in effect, 
and he is distracted between her pleadings and the cries 
from the street. Flinging open the window, he shows 
her the terrible scene of massacre. A lurid light falls 
upon them, and there is murder in the orchestral music. 
Valentine swoons. Raoul looks with anguish upon her 
prostrate form and we hear the struggle he endures. The 
melody of Valentine’s last sweet song predominates for 
a moment in the orchestra, but then the noise of the 
massacre is resumed. Raoul hesitates no longer. One 
farewell glance, and he rushes with drawn sword through 
the open window to the street. 

Unlike many operas in which the fourth act is the 
greatest, the finale of “The Huguenots” is of sustained 


“THE HUGUENOTS” 371 


intensity and not an anti-climax. This fifth act is often 
omitted, however, as it makes the opera very long. The 
scene represents a street at night—men, women, and chil- 
dren cross the stage and take refuge in a church. Raoul 
and Marcel chance to met, and they are soon surprized 
by the entrance of Valentine, who has recklessly followed 
the hero. She wears the white scarf which betokens 
Catholicism and has brought one for Raoul, but he refuses 
this mode of escape. Valentine then flings her own 
emblem away and declares she will join his faith, The 
music of this entire act is most thrilling. We hear the 
women in church singing as a last prayer that grand 
Huguenot hymn and in the distance a chorus of mur- 
derers as they make their awful progress through the 
streets. This massacre music is blood-curdling; its 
steady, muffled tread sounds like marching over a paving 
of dead bodies The waiting figures in the foreground 
again hold our attention. Marcel relates how he wit- 
nessed the death of De Nevers, and on learning that 
Valentine is free, these lovers kneel before the Huguenot 
soldier, who blesses their union. The choral in the church 
is again heard, and those outside join in its splendid 
harmonies. Valentine sings with the fervor of her new- ' 
found faith, “Hosanna, from on high the clarion 
sounds!’ This last trio resembles the finale of “Faust” 
in that the theme rises higher and higher, like a flaming 
fire, to be quenched at last by Death. The murder-chorus 
is heard approaching, and soon a group of massacrers 
Circle VVHOusitherenaticy ask. 

“Huguenot!” replies the hero, and in ringing tones a 
woman’s voice cries out, “Huguenot!” “Fire! orders 
St. Bris, who thereby kills his own daughter. 


CHAPTER GXAYV 
AN: HOUR WIR LICR iri M ANN 


N BERLIN a score or more of years ago, the foreigner 
was at once impressed with two faces, new to him, 
but conspicuous in every show-window. One picture 
represented an imposing, middle-aged man, which you 
were told was “‘unser Kronprinz,”’ and the other, a hand- 
some, fine-figured woman, was “unsere Lilli Lehmann.” . 
And you were looked at in surprize for not knowing 
“our Lilli Lehmann.” 

The Berliners have always spoken in a possessive sense 
of this lady—their star of the opera—especially in that 
year when she broke her contract with the Kaiser to 
accept an engagement in America. It made a great talk 
there at the time, but the Berliners thought none the less 
of her, and the morning after her début in New York 
the first words that greeted you in the Vaterland were: 

“Have you heard the news? The Lilli Lehmann has 
had a great success in America.” 

Twelve years later this same Lilli Lehmann was still 
having “a great success in America.” Her art is endur- 
ing as it is great. She is equally successful in colorature 
and dramatic roles; but her physique and voice are par- 
ticularly fitted to the mythical Wagnerian characters. 
Lilli Lehmann imparts to these legends of the Norseland 
all the attributes our fancy calls for. Her Scandinavian 
goddess is a creature of mighty emotions, heroic build, 
and a voice at times like the fierce north wind. Her cry 
of the Walktire is a revelation in the art of tone-pro- 
duction. 

372 


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LILLI LEHMANN 373 


I was to call upon Madame Lehmann at 9:30 a. M., 
and this after a great and long performance the evening 
before. JI had visions of the prima donna still in bed, 
receiving her caller en negligée, and sipping her coffee, 
served by a French maid, while a parrot and pet dog 
and flowers and the morning mail and newspapers com- 
bined to form an effect of artistic confusion. 

This makes a pleasing picture, but it is not Lilli 
Lehmann. There was no sense of “artistic confusion”’ 
about her, from her gray-tinged hair to her grand, true 
voice. 

In answer to the visitor’s knock at her room in the 
Hotel Netherlands, she opened the door herself, and 
shook hands with true German cordiality. 

The bed in the adjoining room was already made, and 
there was no sign of a late breakfast; all this at an hour 
when it is safe to say half her hearers of the evening 
before were not yet up. 

And Lilli Lehmann, who in the eyes of the public is 
majestically arrayed in flowing robes and breastplates 
and silver shields, wore on this occasion, over her plain 
serge dress, the typical little fancy apron—so dear to the 
German Hausfrau. 

The Berliners may well call her “Our Lilli Lehmann,” 
for she is as unassuming to this day as the least of them. 

But altho she impresses one as unpretentious, one also 
feels at once her great force and energy. It shows in 
her every word and movement, and also in her business- 
like method of being interviewed. 

“Yes, I am quite tired,” was her first remark as she 
seated herself at a little writing-desk and her visitor near 
by. ‘The opera lasted so late; I did not get to bed until 
two o’clock. But I was waiting for you this morning, 


374 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


and had just prepared to write down some items you 
might wish to know.” 

Then she took a pencil and paper—and what do you 
suppose she wrote first? These are the exact words, and 
she read them aloud as she wrote: 

“Born—Wurzburg, November 24, 1848.” 

I could not conceal some surprize, and was obliged to 
explain: “The American ladies so seldom give their age 
that your frankness is a revelation.” 

“The Lilli Lehmann” smiled and said: “Why not? 
One is thereby no younger.” 

She turned again to the desk, and went on with the 
“interview, using her pencil with great firmness and 
rapidity as she wrote in German, and with all possible 
abbreviations: 

“T was brought up in Prague, where I made my début 
when eighteen years of age. My mother was my first 
teacher and constant companion. She was herself a 
dramatic soprano, well known as Maria Low, and my 
father, too, was a singer.” 

“In what opera did you first appear?” 

“It was the ‘Magic Flute,’ and I appeared in one of 
the lighter roles; but two weeks later, during the per- 
formance, the dramatic soprano was taken ill, and I then 
and there went on with her role, trusting to my memory 
after hearing it so often. My mother, who was in the 
audience and knew I had never studied the part, nearly 
fainted when she saw me come on the stage as Pamina.” 

Madame Lehmann’s feats of memory have more than 
once created a sensation. We remember the astonishment 
once aroused in New York music circles when she mas- 
tered the Italian text of “Lucretia Borgia” in three days. 


PCE CEE NAININ 375 


Recurring to her life in Prague, Madame Lehmann 
further said: 

“T appeared not only in many operas, but also as an 
actress in many plays. In those days opera singers were 
expected to be as proficient in the dramatic side of their 
art as the musical, and we were called upon to perform 
in all the great tragedies. But nowadays this would be 
impossible, since the operatic repertoire has become so 
tremendous.” 

People seldom consider how much larger is the present 
list of famous operas than formerly. All the Wagnerian 
works, many of Verdi’s, and most of the French have 
taken their places in comparatively recent years, and yet 
there is still a demand for all the old operas too. The 
singer who attains Wagner must at the same time keep 
up her Mozart, Beethoven, Gluck, Rossini, Meyerbeer, 
and Bellini. 

As the visitor mentioned Bellini, Madame Lehmann 
assented. “Yes, we are to give ‘Norma’ next month.” 
“Norma,” abounding in melody and florid fancies, is as 
different from Wagner as a cloudless sky from a thun- 
der-storm. 

The divine art, like nature, has its various moods, and 
Wagner and Bellini represent two extremes. 

Among Wagner’s works, “Isolde” is one character 
to which Madame Lehmann’s temperament and physique 
are strikingly fitted. Throughout the long first act, 
wherein she is almost constantly singing, she imparts a 
glorious impression of one who thinks in music. The 
fearless, impassioned Jsolde thinks bitter, rancorous 
thoughts of Tristan, whom she abhors, until with fierce 
resolve she hands him the fatal drink which, unknown to 
herself, is a love-potion. The previous dearth of action 


376 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


has created a ready mood for us to thrill and respond at 
the love-frenzy, the delirium which now animates the 
scene as these unwitting lovers suddenly find all hatred 
and other memories gone from their hearts. 

It may be mentioned here that Wagner firmly believed 
in the power of contrast, and he purposely preceded his 
greatest climaxes by what many would deem an unwonted 
length of inaction. 

In 1870 Lilli Lehmann was engaged for the Berlin 
Opera-House. 

Americans can hardly appreciate the significance of 
this fact; but it means much. The opera in Berlin is 
supported by the government and was formerly directly 
under the supervision of the emperor. The singers are 
not engaged for a season, but for life, being entitled to 
an annuity after they retire from the stage. 

When asked if the old Emperor Wilhelm was musical, 
Madame Lehmann smiled, and there was a gleam of 
humor in her eyes: 

“No, I can not truthfully say that he was at all musical, 
tho he was wonderfully kind and good to all artists.” 

For fifteen years Lilli Lehmann sang in Berlin with 
an occasional flight to Baireuth, under the kaiser’s per- 
mission, where she sang for Wagner himself. 

“T was one of the Rhine daughters, and also the first 
Forest Bird in ‘Siegfried.’ ” 

Wagner’s own Forest Bird! It is a thrilling and poetic 
statement that would be hard to equal. Of all this great 
master’s characters, including gods and demi-gods, 
knights and shepherds, dwarfs and giants, his most 
original, and perhaps for this reason his best-loved chil- 
dren of the brain, were, we believe, his Rhine daughters 
and his Forest Bird. The former sing under the water 





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LILLI LEHMANN | 377 


laughing strains of mystical import and unearthly sweet- 
ness, while the Forest Bird sings in the air—always un- 
seen, but more impressive than the greatest presence. 

This bird-music is not very long, but it is of unsur- 
passed beauty, and the most memorable theme in the 
opera. The scene, too, is exceptional and powerful in its 
simplicity—only one person on the stage. Siegfried, the 
inspired youth, who knows the speech of bird and beast, 
is alone in the forest when he hears a bird sing. He 
pauses to listen, as you in the audience do too, for the 
song is not a meaningless mocking-bird array of trills 
and cadences, but a tender strain that bespeaks the bird 
as a prophet. Siegfried tries to catch the message, tries 
to see the bird, and tries, too, to imitate its tones. He 
cuts him a reed from the water-banks, and shapes it and 
tests it until he can play upon it the music he hears. Ah, 
we should like to have been in that audience at Baireuth 
when this Forest Bird took its first flight into the world! 

It is a great thing to create a role, to set the standard 
by which all later performances shall be modeled. If the 
new opera proves to be a great and lasting work, the 
singers who created the important roles are always cred- 
ited therewith and mentioned. They usually have been 
selected by the composer, and their performance is the 
result of his best instruction as well as their own inspira- 
tion. Madame Lehmann has “created” many réles, but 
the most poetic, we deem, is the Forest Bird. 

After writing with characteristic abbreviation the fore- 
going fact—‘‘’75-’76, Baireuth, Rhine daughter, I Forest 
Bird’”—Madame Lehmann handed over the paper and 
asked, “Is there anything more I can tell you?” 

Her bright eyes, clear complexion, and magnificent 
figure prompted a personal question: 


378 OPDRAVAN DIED Shot ics 


“How do you keep your splendid health, and the 
strength to work so much?” 

For this she had a ready answer: 

“T have been a vegetarian for the past five years.” 

In reply to one more parting question, Lilli Lehmann 
spoke words of wisdom that are worthy of reflection: 

“Yes, I still practise and study more than ever. At 
the end one is just beginning.” 


CEASE REV Tr 
ene Pe YINGyDUFCHMAN: 


she HE FLYING DUTCHMAN?” is one of the most 
melodious of Wagner’s operas, and also one of 
the most popular in Germany. Its soprano role is well 
beloved by all Wagnerian singers, but for some reason 
the work is seldom given in this country. Americans 
have never had an opportunity to hear Madame Lehmann 
in this opera, but it is one in which she is well known 
abroad. 

“Der Fliegende Hollander” is an early offspring of 
Wagner's genius, and was composed at a time when Fate 
frowned upon him, and poverty and despair were his 
close companions. After six weeks of feverish labor, 
alone in hostile Paris, Wagner presented his beloved 
score to the orchestra of the “Conservatoire.” They 
promptly condemned it, which affords a notable example 
of the change in musical taste. Portions of the “Flying 
Dutchman” now hold a permanent place on French pro- 
grams, 

The plot, as well as the music, is as usual Wagner’s 
own. “A daring captain, after frequent vain attempts 
to double the Cape of Storms, swears a mighty oath to 
persevere throughout eternity. The devil takes him 
at his word, and the hapless mariner is doomed to roam 
the seas forever.” Such is the legend of the “Flying 
Dutchman,’ to which Wagner has added one redeeming 
clause: once in seven years the wanderer may land in 
search of a faithful wife. If she be true unto death, the 
curse shall be lifted. 

379 


380 . OPERA AND ITS STARS 


Wagner’s music is so powerful and absolutely appro- 
priate that it seems to suggest the text, instead of con- 
forming to it. No ordinary tunes or conventional har- 
monies could adequately depict the roaming, restless, 
Satan-chased sailor. The overture opens with the curse- 
theme, which seems like the fantom ship itself as we 
follow its course throughout the introduction. It rides 
over and under and around hurricanes of chromatics and 
tremolos. Chords sweep like a deluge over the luckless 
theme. But as neither rocks nor tempest can annihilate 


the accursed vessel, so this theme mounts ever upper- 


most. On and on, “Ohne Rast, ohne Ruh,’ must sail 
the Flying Dutchman. But the wanderer in his dark 
existence finds hope in the Salvation-theme, a peaceful, 
religious phrase that is poised like a single star amid the 
tumultuous elements. Like all of Wagner’s overtures, 
this one has become a favorite program piece. 

With the ascending curtain there arises from the or- 
chestra a storm of restless tremolos and shrieking scales. 
The wind and waves thus sounded in the music are also 
depicted on the stage. An expanse of ocean occupies 
most of the scene, only in front the turbulent waves beat 
against a black Norwegian coast. Driven thither by the 
elements, a ship casts anchor at the shore. Daland, the 
captain, steps on land, while his crew noisily pull up sails 
and cast out cables. As they work they shout in unison 
a rude refrain that lends rhythm to their movements, 
“Yo-ho-ho! Ho-he!’ This is accompanied by surging 
waves of sound from the orchestra. Owing to the sud- 
den storm, this ship has been carried seven miles away 
from the home port, to which it was returning after a 
long voyage. There is nothing to do but wait for a 
south wind to carry them back. Daland goes on board 


“THE FLYING DUTCHMAN” 381 


again and orders the sailors to rest. He also retires, 
after entrusting the watch to his Boatswain. 

Altho this Boatswain has no name, he is no insignifi- 
cant character, for to him falls one of the loveliest songs 
of the opera. He has a tenor voice, and is in love with 
a “blue-eyed madel.” He makes a tour of the deck, and 
then seats himself by the rudder. The storm has abated, 
but we occasionally hear a gust of chromatics and a 
splash of chords. To ward off sleep, the boatswain sings 
of his sweetheart, and calls upon the south wind to blow 
their good ship home. This music is delightful and re- 
freshing as a salt sea breeze. The sailor does not trouble 
himself with any fixed standard of tempo. He sings 
like the fitful wind, one moment “‘accelerando,”’ and the 
next “una poco moderato.” He sustains the climaxes 
and indulges in sentimental “rubatos,”’ all of which is 
a touch of naturalness skilfully introduced by the com- 
poser. The Boatswain makes another tour of the deck 
and then renews his song; but there is this time more 
languor in his tones. The phrases are separated by fre- 
quent “rests,” the “moderatos” have developed into 
“argos”; the “rubatos” are exaggerated, and finally this 
sweet-voiced Boatswain falls asleep. 

Soon the clouds become black and lowering, the waves 
are white and towering, and the orchestra is like a seeth- 
ing cauldron of sound. The conductor stirs it up more 
and more, until he brings to the top that awful curse- 
theme of the Flying Dutchman. We lift our eyes to the 
stage, and lo! over the dark waters comes another ship, 
strange and uncanny in appearance, for its sails are blood- 
red and they hang upon masts that are black as night. 
With a mighty crash this wanderer of the seas sinks 
anchor alongside the Norwegian vessel. The dreaming 


382 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


Boatswain is aroused for a moment. He hums a snatch 
of his love-song, and then once again nods his head in 
slumber. A terrifying silence falls upon the music as we 
watch the ghostly crew of the fantom vessel noiselessly 
furl those crimson sails. 

There is a pause, and then, soft but impressive, that 
remarkable curse-motif announces the approach of the 
fTollander himself. He steps upon shore after another 
seven years of wandering. His stalwart figure is draped 
in a black mantle, he wears a full beard, and has a bary- 
tone voice. 

The first solo of the Hollander is most interesting; 
but those who expect a pleasing tune with a one-two-three 
accompaniment will be disappointed. One is apt to think 
that music must be always beautiful to be admired, but 
Wagner has taught that this idea is erroneous. Music 
should represent what the maker feels, just as painting 
does what he sees; and in proportion to the correctness 
of his representation is the work to be admired. As a 
prominent example of this fact in painting, mention may 
be made of Munkacsy’s picture of Judas, which all admire 
but none call beautiful. And so this solo of the accursed 
mariner is not beautiful, as that term goes. How could 
it be? The weary, dreary, condemned Dutchman, com- 
muning with himself, does not think of graceful melodies 
that delight the senses. His phrases, instead, are all 
angular, bitter, heavy, and despairing. He tells of his 
longing for rest, and he mocks at the hope of finding 
true love. Too often has he been deceived: “I wait and 
watch for the Judgment Day. Then only shall I rest!” 

The Hollander leans mournfully against a rock, and 
the music subsides, until a light-hearted melody directs 
our attention to the Norwegian ship. Daland has come 


re Owe YUNG DUE VAN” 383 


upon deck, and is surprized to find another ship along- 
side. He calls the Boatswain, who, half awake, com- 
mences to hum his love-song; but another call from the 
captain brings him to his feet. They hasten to signal 
the strange ship, but receive no answer; whereupon 
Daland, seeing the Hollander, steps upon shore to accost 
him. 

Politely but unconcernedly the hero makes answer to 
all questions, and learns, in turn, that Daland’s home is 
but seven miles’ sail from here. The Hollander asks for 
a night’s lodging, and offers to pay liberally. He brings 
forth a casket of jewels, which he declares is but a sample 
of the cargo he carries. With bitter tones he adds: 
“What joy are such riches to me? I have no home, no 
wife, no child; all my wealth should be yours if you 
could give me these.” He astonishes Daland with the 
sudden question, “Have you a daughter?” and on being 
answered in the affirmative the Hollander proposes to 
wed her. Very nobly does this strange suitor plead his 
cause, his longing for love and rest. The music is here 
truly beautiful, for the hero is striving to win and please. 

Captured by the prospect of wealth and also by the 
strange fascination of the Hollander, Daland consents to 
the proposition. Once again the sad seaman is tempted 
to hope. The music has become decisive and, because 
of rapid tempo, sounds quite joyous. On top of this 
pleasing climax there comes a happy cry from the Nor- 
wegian ship: “A south wind! south wind!” The sailors 
sing their “Yo-ho-ho” chorus as they let down sails and 
pull up anchor. Daland goes on board, and the Hollan- 
der promises to follow. With a breezy accompaniment 
of wind instruments the two ships sail away and the 
curtain descends. 


384 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


The prelude to the second act carries us from the 
storm-beaten coast of Norway to the domestic peace of 
Daland’s home. The composition is like a brisk sail 
over smooth harmonies. It opens with the Boatswain's 
song of the south wind, and after a succession of undulat- 
ing passages finally lands upon the celebrated spinning- 
chorus. 

A capacious room in the Captain’s home is filled with 
a merry company of maidens, who, with their spinning- 
wheels, are working together under the watchful eyes of 
Frau Mary. The wheels whir and whiz, like a drone of 
bees, the orchestra keeps up a continuous revolving ac- 
companiment, and even the melody, with its ingenious 
rhythm, simulates a whirling wheel. The picture is as 
pleasing as the music; both are unique and delightful. 
The girls spin industriously where the song goes fast, 
but unconsciously hold up with the ritardandos, and 
Frau Mary has frequent occasion to remonstrate. 

Only Senta, the Captain’s daughter, does not join in 
the song. She is sitting in a big armchair and dreamily 
regards a large picture that is hanging over the hearth. 
It is an ideal portrait of the Flying Dutchman, such as 
many seafaring folk possess. Senta is an imaginative 
girl, and has always been fascinated by the ‘‘pale man” 
on the wall and his story. She begs Frau Mary to sing 
the ballad of the Flying Dutchman. This request being 
refused, Senta sings it herself. Truly wonderful is this 
ballad, with its blustering accompaniment and shivering 
climaxes. The final verse relates how every seven years 
the weary seaman lands in search of a faithful wife, but 
never yet has he found one. “False love! false faith! 
Forever and ever must he ride the seas!” 

Senta has become so wrought up by the song that she 


“THE FLYING DUTCHMAN” 38s 


now sinks back in her chair from exhaustion, while the 
other girls sing with bated breath that beautiful melody 
of the salvation-theme. “And will he never find her?” 
they ask with childlike credulity. Senta suddenly springs 
from her chair and sings out with exultant tones: “I am 
the one who could save him! I would be true till death! 
May heaven’s angels send him to me!” This music is 
of boundless intensity; the strongly accented accompani- 
ment sweeps forward and recedes like angry breakers, 
while the voice part soars above like a fearless sea-bird. 
“Senta! Senta! Heaven help us, she has lost her reason!’ 
exclaim the astonished maidens, and Frau Mary utters 
maledictions upon that “miserable picture,” threatening 
to throw it out of the house. 

At this moment Erik, the young hunter who loves 
Senta, hastily enters, announcing that her father’s ship 
is landing. The dreamy heroine promptly revives at this 
news, and becomes as elated and excited as any of the 
girls. They all want to rush out and see the ship, but 
Frau Mary orders them back, directing them, instead, to 
the kitchen, where there is work to be done on account 
of this sudden home-coming. With much chattering 
and commotion the girls and Frau Mary go out, leaving 
Senta and Erik alone. 

He detains her to listen to his vows and fears. Very 
tender and earnest is this song of love and doubt. Wagner 
_knew well how to use the simple melody, which he con- 
sidered essential to some emotions but out of place with 
others. Like the artist’s fine brush, it will not do for 
painting storm-clouds, but in scenes of delicate delinea- 
tion it is used with good effect. Erik is troubled about 
a dream he had the night before. To the usual dream 
accompaniment of violin tremolos, he relates how he 


386 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


saw Senta’s father bring with him a stranger who looked 
like that picture on the wall. Already we hear far away 
beneath the tremolos, soft but distinct, the curse-theme 
of the Flying Dutchman. As the dream-song goes on 
this ominous phrase comes nearer, step by step, always in 
a higher key, always louder and more impressive. It 
represents, in fact, the actual approach of the Hollander, 
Senta listens as though entranced while Erik tells how 
he saw her come forward and kneel at the stranger’s feet. 
But the “pale man” lifted her in his arms and carried 
her away over the sea. To Erik’s horror, Senta turns 
toward the picture and cries out: “He is seeking me! I 
would save him!’ The young hunter sadly goes away, 
believing that she is out of her mind. 

Senta continues gazing at the picture. The music has 
become soft and slow, and the curse-theme pervades the 
air like a ghostly presence. But the heroine sings to 
herself that beautiful salvation-motif. The phrase is 
finished with a startled shriek, for the door has opened, 
and there before the astonished girl stands her hero— 
“der Fliegende Hollander!’ Daland, her father, is also 
there, but Senta has neither sight nor thought of him. 
She stands immobile and amazed, her eyes never turning 
from the Hollander. When Daland comes nearer, she 
grasps his hand, whispering, “Who is that stranger?” 

The father has carefully prepared his answer, and it is 
the finest bass solo of the opera. After telling Senta 
that the stranger has come to be her bridegroom, he 
turns to the Hollander, asking, “Did I exaggerate her 
loveliness? Is she not an ornament to her sex?’ In this 
phrase the listener is surprized with a genuine ad libitum 
colorature passage, a style of musical decoration in which 
Wagner seldom indulges. But in the original text this 


(eee PSV INGY DU Ten MAN? 387 


bit of fioritura falls upon the word zieret (‘ornament’), 
and thus is a striking example of Wagner’s theory that 
music must fit the words. Daland sings on for some 
time, until he notices that neither Senta nor the Hollan- 
der accord him any attention. ‘They are still gazing at 
each other, and the father very wisely goes out. 

The leading theme of his aria slowly departs from 
the orchestra, and then, softly and hesitatingly, the curse- 
theme and salvation-motif enter side by side. They move 
around a little, as tho to make themselves at home, and 
then begins the great duet between soprano and barytone. 

The Hollander recognizes in Senta the angel of his 
dreams, and she finds his voice greeting her like familiar 
music. A beautiful melody is borne upon the orchestra 
like a boat on the breast of a stream. As the graceful 
structure floats past, the soprano and then the barytone 
enter upon it. They glide on together, over smooth 
places, upon tremulous undercurrents, but finally touch 
upon the salvation-theme, which, throughout the opera, 
is typical of the seaman’s haven. It often arises above 
stormy passages like a mirage of the longed-for harbor. 

After this vocal excursion the Hollander asks Senta 
if she is willing to abide by her father’s choice and to 
vow eternal faith. Her consent is glad and free. There 
is another ensemble introducing a new and stirring joy- 
theme. The highest note always occurs upon the word 
faith, thus fulfilling the substance of the text, Souter 1s, 
“Faith above all!’ 

Daland reenters and is delighted to find aie unity of 
voice and purpose. He wishes the engagement announced 
at the evening féte which his sailors will have to celebrate 
their home-coming. Senta repeats her vow to be faithful 

unto death, and the act closes with an exhilarating trio. 


388 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


Wagner makes his orchestral preludes conform to a 
distinct purpose—that of connecting the acts. So with 
the next introduction we hear the joyous theme of the 
recent duet gradually modulated into a whispering mem- 
ory of the Boatswain's song. This, in turn, develops into 
a new and noisy nautical refrain that is continued till the 
curtain rises and then is sung by the Norwegian sailors 
who are on the deck of their ship. They are merry- 
making. The ship is illuminated with gay lanterns, as 
are also the tavern and houses in the foreground. But 
not so the stranger’s vessel that lies alongside at the 
back of the stage. It is engulfed in gloom and silence 
like the grave. The gay Norwegian chorus has a peculiar 
rhythm that suggests the flapping of sail-cloth in a brisk 
wind; it has sharp, rugged accents and a spirited tempo. 
The song is ended with a regular hornpipe dance on deck. 
This bewitching dance-melody seems thrown in to show 
what Wagner could do in that line if he wanted to. 

Some maidens come from the tavern with a basketful 
of provisions. While the sailors continue dancing to 
the gay orchestral accompaniment, the girls sing among 
themselves in quite another strain. As their conversa- 
tion should be most prominent, the dance-melody is 
promptly changed from major to minor, which always 
gives a subduing and receding effect like “scumbling 
over’ in painting. 

The girls go toward the Hollander’s ship, intending 
their provisions for the strangers, who seem to be sleep- 
ing profoundly. The girls call to them, but only a ghostly 
silence rewards their efforts. They sing a winning waltz 
phrase inviting the strangers to join their féte; they offer 
every inducement to arouse the silent crew, and finally 


ara Ee ey DN aD Uy CEDNEAN 3289 


resort to a great outcry: “Seamen! Seamen; wake up!” 
But again only prolonged stillness is the answer. 

The well-meaning maidens are thoroughly frightened, 
and they hasten away after handing their basket to the 
Norwegian sailors. These proceed to enjoy the contents. 
They fill their wine-glasses and repeat the merry open- 
ing chorus. 

In the meantime the sea surrounding the Holldinder’s 
ship becomes suddenly turbulent, a weird blue light il- 
lumines the vessel, and its crew, which were before invis- 
ible, are seen to move about. 

The Norwegians cease singing, while their ghostly 
neighbors begin to chant in hollow tones that terrible 
curse-theme. Tremolos and chromatics descend upon the 
orchestra like a storm of hail and rain that almost drown 
the singers’ voices. To a demoniacal refrain full of 
startling crescendos and pauses they sing of their gloomy 
captain 

“Who has gone upon land to win a maiden’s hand.” 

Then they laugh an unearthly “Ha! ha!” 

The Norwegian sailors have listened at first with won- 
der and then with horror. Like children afraid in the 
dark, they decide to sing as loud as they can. So their 
gay sailors’ chorus rings out above the steady curse- 
theme of the Hollander’s crew. The Norwegians urge 
each other to sing louder. Three times they start their 
song in a higher key, but that fearful refrain from the 
fantom ship overcomes every other sound. The Nor- 
wegians are too terrified to continue. They cross them- 
selves and hurry below deck. The sign of the cross 
arouses another mocking laugh from the crew of the 
“Flying Dutchman.’ Then suddenly silence falls upon 
them. The blue flame disappears and darkness hangs 


200 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


over all, while in the orchestra there is a long-sustained 
note, and then one soft minor chord like the shutting of 
a door upon the recent musical scene. 

The succeeding harmonies are of another character, 
as distinct as a new stage-setting. A phrase that well 
simulates hurried footsteps accompanies the hasty en- 
trance of Senta and Erik who is much agitated. He has 
just heard of her engagement to the stranger, and can 
scarcely believe it. He upbraids and pleads in one breath, 
while Senta begs him to desist. But the despairing Erik | 
kneels before her and sings with grief-stricken tones of 
their past love. Like all of Erik’s music, this cavatine 
is simple and sincere, as one would expect from a peas- 
ant lad. 

While he is kneeling before her the Hollander comes 
upon the scene unobserved. With tones as furious as 
the orchestra accompaniment he cries out: “Lost! My 
happiness is lost! Senta, farewell!’ He summons his 
crew to haul up anchor and let down sails. “False love! 
false faith! I must wander the seas forever!” 

A tempestuous trio follows the Hollinder’s outcry. 
Senta reiterates her vow, and with intense fervor declares 
he must not leave her. Maidens and sailors rush to the 
scene, but all stand back in amazement as they hear the 
stranger announce: “You know me not, else had you 
ne’er received me. My ship is the terror of all good 
people. [am called The Flying Dutchman!’ With this 
word he springs upon board; the crimson sails expand 
upon the black masts, and the ship leaves shore; while 
the ghostly crew chant their blood-curdling “Yo-ho-ho!” 

But this is our last hearing of the curse-theme. Senta 
has rushed upon a high rock projecting into the sea. 
With full voice and soaring tones she calls to the receding 


“THE FLYING DUTCHMAN” 301 


ship: “My vow was true! I am faithful unto death !’— 
whereupon she throws herself into the waves. 

No sooner has she done so than the fantom vessel 
sinks from sight. The music also tumbles down a tre- 
mendous chromatic, then it mounts again, changing from 
minor to major, which gives an effect of sudden peace. 
The Hollander has found true love. He rescues Senta 
and we see him clasping her in his arms, while the chords 
of the salvation-theme rise above the other harmonies 
like the spires of a beautiful city. The haven has been 
reached at last. 


CHAPTER XXVII 
MARCELLA SEMBRICH—THE STAR OF STARS 


ARLY in the season of 1898-99 there was a per- 
2 formance of “Traviata” in the Metropolitan 
Opera House which might be described as “an occasion 
of superlatives’—including the largest auditorium, the 
biggest audience, the finest singers. 

Grand Opera in itself is a culmination and combina- 
tion of the greatest efforts of the greatest minds. There 
is, in the first place, the plot of the libretto, which in the 
case of “Traviata” was the masterpiece of Dumas, 
France’s greatest dramatist—a man who labored all his 
life as tho achievement required only work, and who yet 
possessed such mental power as no amount of work 
could achieve. 

After Dumas comes the librettist who transposed the 
story into suitable Italian verse to be set to music. And 
then we have the work, the inmost thoughts, of Giuseppe 
Verdi, Italy’s greatest modern composer. There was a 
day when each of these sparkling melodies that now 
delight the whole world was born in the soul of Verdi, 
and heard by him alone. But he patiently put upon paper 
every note that his years of study and his gifted soul 
impelled. 

The work of the composer, the dramatist, and the 
librettist belongs to the past, however, and that audience 
of five thousand people did not bestow much thought on 
them. Nor did they think very often of the orchestra, 
composed of fifty thorough musicians, who really worked 
more during the performance than any of the other 
participants. 

392 





© AIME DUPONT. N. Y. 


MARCELLA SEMBRICH 





MARCELLA SEMBRICH 393 


It may be mentioned here that in all Grand Operas 
the orchestra plays continually; it is the wall upon which 
the picture is hung. There may be pauses in the singing, 
but the conductor’s baton never rests. 

People seldom appreciate the vast knowledge of music 
and the remarkable ability in sight-reading which these 
orchestra players possess. Not one of them but has 
worked at his art from childhood; most of them play 
several different instruments; and they all hold as a creed 
that a false note is a sin, and a variation in rhythm is a 
fall from grace. The director is their temporary deity 
who commands the orchestra beneath and the stage above 
~——a little universe of music. He holds all together and 
dictates the tempo, the expression, and the phrasing. His 
commands are for the time being immutable as the laws 
of nature, for any serious disobedience would cause the 
whole structure to fall to pieces. 

The five thousand listeners gave some applause to the 
director after the playing of the introduction, and they 
gave a little more to the chorus—those earnest workers 
who serve Grand Opera as the stokers do a ship. Then 
the tenor received a good deal of applause—his reward 
for training his voice, studying music, memorizing 
operas, Overcoming nervousness, and singing in public 
twenty years. 

But the great applause, the “bravos,” the cheering, the 
- excitement, were reserved for the star, the soprano— 
Marcella Sembrich! It is always impressive to witness 
such a success. It is inspiring to know that one woman 
can so stir the hearts of the people. 

Madame Sembrich’s voice is as perfect a voice as the 
world has ever heard. Yet her greatness consists more 
in her art than in her voice. She has not been satisfied 


3904 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


merely to use her gift as nature gave it, but she has 
acquired a mastery of tone-coloring; an art that can im- 
part to every tone a meaning of its own, and can express 
thereby all the quick-flashing subtleties of emotion. In 
the last act of “Traviata” the quality of her tones, always 
beautiful, but ever varying as her art dictates, conveys to 
the listener surely and truly the approach of death and 
the hope of heaven. This is great art indeed. No won- 
der the audience fairly gasps as the last sweet tone leaves 
the lips of the pale Violetta and soars away into infinite 
space. 

It was the day after “Traviata,” when, in response to 
a knock at Madame Sembrich’s door in the Hotel Savoy, 
a mellow voice said, “Come in.” 

On my obeying this summons, the singer was “dis- 
covered’’—as the librettos have it—standing near her 
grand piano, alone, and as unostentatious as your own 
sister. 

There was no effect of the impressive prima donna, 
all flowers and frills and frou-frow. She was quite alone, 
just as lesser mortals sometimes are; and she furthermore 
spared her visitor from any sense of interrupted work, 
or great haste, or the magnitude of the occasion. 

She was just a courteous, quiet lady who seated her- 
self beside the visitor and talked earnestly about music 
and work. 

When asked how early she began to study the art 
seriously, she replied: “When I was six years old. My 
father taught me the piano until I was ten. He was a 
very gifted man. Then I also studied for a while with 
Dr. Stengel, who is now my husband, and with Epstein 
in Vienna.” 

On learning that her visitor was acquainted with 





MARCELLA SEMBRICH 305 


Vienna, Madame Sembrich’s face lit up (she has a radi- 
ant smile) : “Ach! then you speak German?” And from 
this point she talked altogether in German, which is more 
akin to her native Polish. 

She is fluent, however, in all the continental languages. 
“We have to know them all, for we need them con- 
stantly,”’ she explained. In reply to other questions, the 
singer told enthusiastically of her early work. 

“I can not say I was ever discouraged, for I so enjoyed 
my art that it was always of absorbing interest; but my 
whole life has been made up of hard work, always work, 
I also studied the violin and composition, and I used to 
rise early and go to bed late, for I worked many hours 
aeclaye. 

Madame Sembrich is one of the most thorough, all 
round musicians the lyric stage has ever known. She is 
not only a singer, but has played successfully in public 
on the piano and violin. Her rare gift of voice was not 
discovered until she was seventeen. Then her great 
knowledge of music enabled her quickly to develop the 
voice, and it was not long before she appeared in opera 
and made her first great success in London. When asked 
if she was ever nervous, the answer came promptly: 

“Oh, yes, very nervous! Now I am always nervous. 
But in the early days it was not so bad. When you are 
young and have a beautiful voice, you think it is all that 
is necessary, and are not nervous, because you do not 
realize the depth and extent of art. But as you grow 
older you appreciate the possibilities of art—you know 
what it implies, and how perfect you wish to make it; 
and then you are nervous. It is more nervous work, 
too, for such artists as Madame Patti, Madame Melba, 
or myself, who travel about and sing first in one place 


396 OPERAVAND ITTS’SLARS 


and then in another, because each time we have to win 
our audience and make a new conquest. In Europe, at 
the great opera-houses such as are in Vienna or Berlin, 
it is different, for there the singers are engaged per- 
manently. The public knows how well they can do, and 
if sometimes they art not at their best, they know the 
public will excuse them. I find I am more nervous, too, 
as my reputation increases, for more is expected of me.” 

Referring again to her studies, Madame Sembrich 
counted over thirty-seven full operas that she has learned. 
It is well to consider for a moment what this implies. 
Aside from the native gifts of voice, musical talent, and 
dramatic temperament, there must be years of practise in 
singing and acting; then the words of each opera must 
be memorized, sometimes in three languages. After 
studying, originating, and mastering the action, the music 
must be learned, and every word wedded to a certain tone, 
and every tone to a certain beat of time. Herein the 
actress has but a slight task compared to the opera-singer, 
for in the drama it matters not if a word comes a moment 
sooner or later; but in Grand Opera a second’s deviation 
might cause a discord. 

Madame Sembrich delights in the opera “Traviata” 
because of its intense action. 

“But I like, too, the lighter operas. The merriment of 
‘Rosina’ amuses me as I act it.” 

One more question was asked as her visitor arose to go. 

“Ts it true, Madame Sembrich, that you walk two 
hours every day?” 

“Yes,” she answered good-humoredly. “I had just 
returned to-day when you came. I started at eleven and 
got home at one.” 

Regular and rigorous in her daily life even yet! Upon 





MARGRUIUA SEMPBRICH 397 


meeting Madame Sembrich, one receives an impression 
of graciousness and greatness not to be forgotten. 


And in the year 1924 we find Madame Sembrich still 
regnant: a star still luminous—a guiding star—with 
satellites inumerable. 

Madame Sembrich has retired from the operatic stage, 
but only to emerge in new glory. As the Abbé Liszt in 
his later years held sway over all who sought to conquer 
the heights and declivities of the keyboard, so Madame 
Sembrich to-day rules in the world of song. She holds 
supreme authority—hers is the last word—on the im- 
mortal art of the singer. 

In old Weimar it was that the great Liszt—imperious 
as a crowned king—received the elect of the musical 
world. But Madame Sembrich it is who now wields the 
sceptre. She holds court in a chdateau-royal—nothing 
less—on the banks of our own Lake George. 

She has here a thoughtful outlook upon life: all about 
her, bordering the lake, are brooding mountains forever 
poised on their deep reflections in the waters below. 
The entrance-drive to her door compasses a huge magic 
circle of towering hemlock trees (seven times seven I 
should say there are) mathematically placed, dark Druid- 
ical, and centuries old; their heavy-hung drooping 
branches sway in solemn gesture as with some mighty 
import. And within that eerie circle there is nothing 
but one vast shadowed lawn; nothing at all that the eye 
may see, but the feeling you get of a mystic presence is 
beyond the power of words to describe. Flashing visions 
you get—just a fleeting thought—of fairies in moonlight 
revel, and dim dream-figures of all the fair ladies and 


208 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


dauntless heroes that poesy and music have conjured 
tojlite: | 

I was literally agasp and enthralled by the splendid 
spell of that glooming circle when first I drove up to 
Madame Sembrich’s mountain home. But the home itself 
I soon found to be an abode of brightness—all laughter 
and sunshine. 

The Diva’s beloved friend, Miss Julie de Coppet— 
herself the spirit of grace and geniality—was awaiting 
us at the door. And a moment later, stepping in from 
the flower-garden, appeared Madame Sembrich, a trowel 
in her hand, a smile on her lips and a sunbonnet on her 
head! 

Yes—a real sunbonnet. 

But let me whisper something: that sunbonnet was 
small and harmonized perfectly with Madame’s old-rose 
morning frock of mousseline-de-soie. The artist-instinct 
is ever present, in small things as in great. Indeed so 
secoming was that simple sunbonnet that we induced 
her to keep it on as we all seated ourselves on the spacious 
veranda overlooking the lake. 

It was still early in the season. Madame regretted that 
her group of pupils were not yet there, that I might meet 
and hear them. 

The names of most of these pupils would astonish you. 
for they are names you have already seen on programs. 
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that to be known as 
a pupil of Sembrich is tantamount to holding in your 
pocket a signed contract with La Scala in Milan or the 
Metropolitan in New York. 

Madame Sembrich will teach only those whom she 
wishes to teach—whether beggar or prince it matters 
not—only those endowed with talent and youth—no 





ee ee a 


| 


MARCELLA SEMBRICH 399 


others will she listen to. Many apply but few are 
chosen. I know this, not from Madame Sembrich her- 
self, but from would-be pupils—wealthy ones, beautiful, 
eager and ambitious—who have failed to enlist her inter- 
est. Not only youth, talent and voice must the future 
opera-star possess, but also patience, determination and 
tireless application. These latter qualities can not always 
be gaged at once, so some are admitted but soon sifted 
Piece: Americans have plenty of: talent) (this jis 
the Madame herself speaking), “and there are many fine 
voices; they have ambition, too, but the patient, steady, 
unending work comes hard on many of them. They are 
eager for pleasure and success. They are full of life and 
nervous energy ; the plodding persistence of the true artist 
they find it difficult to acquire. They wish only to sing— 
not to study. And O! the trouble I have to make them 
enunciate well—be true to the vowel. Some girls are 
with me several months before they realize that they 
constantly say “Ah-ee” instead of the pure “Ah-aa.”’ 

The subject of diction led to the eternal question of 
Grand Opera in English. Her reply was ready and clear. 
“If you mean Grand Opera in translation—that is un- 
thinkable, for then the force of both music and words are 
distorted. ‘The composer has written his music in con- 
formity to, and inspired by, the original libretto. He 
emphasizes, retards and climaxes his music—even shapes 
his themes to conform to the idiom of his own language. 
To transpose these phrases, to mate a single syllable with 
a note not designed for it, is monstrous. ‘There are some 
consonants and diphthongs hardly singable on high 
notes, and often a forceful monosyllable that effectively 
portrays the emotion of the moment, is wholly negated 
by a phrase in the music never intended for it. 


400 OPERA (AND ITS SPARS 


But Grand Opera written by the composer for English 
words, and enunciated as clearly as John McCormick 
does—why then it is beautiful.” 

Again she shrugged her shoulders, with a sigh and a 
smile. 

“But the trouble I have to make students realize the 
importance of clean diction! Why, I find myself spend- 
ing most of my time teaching pronunciation instead of 
opera-arias and interpretation.” 

But this régime is evidently harder on the pupils than 
on Madame Sembrich. She joys in it all; her life’s 
latest and most lasting work. She realizes that her 
superb art will be carried on by this younger generation 
of great singers she is starting upon notable careers. And 
the joy of this work—this far-reaching power she wields 
—lends a new glow to Madame Sembrich’s always beauti- 
ful face. She has been through long. sick-spells and_ 
sorrow-spells.. (The loss of her life’s companion, Dr. 
Stengel, was as the loss of a prop of oak to the stalk of 
a rare and exalted flower.) And three times she has 
broken her arm. (She jests about this; calls it her spe- 
cialty). But in spite of all set-backs, Madame Sembrich 
is radiant and beautiful as ever. All who lately have seen 
her tell the same tale. She is young—actually young, 
not merely in spirit—but in the flesh: eyes, smile, hair, 
and figure, all proclaim this. She well proves her own 
statement : 

“Music knows no age.” She said more on this subject. 
“The public always asks of an artist ‘how old is she?’ ” 
Another shrug of the splendid Sembrich shoulders— 
“How foolish!—if she sings well or plays well—what 
matters her age? And always, too, they are asking, ‘has 
she temperament?’ ‘“Temperament’—‘temperament !’—as 


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© AIME DUPONT, N. Y. 


SEMBRICH' AS “RoSINA” IN “THE BARBER OF SEVILLE” 





MARCELLA SEMBRICH 401 


tho that were everything. One hears of nothing else now- 
adays. When I was a girl the singing-art depended more 
upon a great voice and great work.” 

And a great soul, she might have added; in her own 
life and art this has always been evident. She has never 
hesitated to give herself, lavishly, to all she came near. 
The story is told of how years ago, when serenaded at 
midnight by musicians in front of the Fifth Avenue 
Hotel, she impulsively opened her window and answered 
back with a song—regardless of her high-priced voice 
and the night air. That is Sembrich for you. She very 
nearly gave her life during the war in striving to help 
her homeland, Poland. Her-long two years of serious 
illness was directly due to the overstrain of that period. 
I saw her myself, speaking two and three times a day at 
big meetings, begging for funds, when she scarcely could 
hide the persistent cough that had clutched upon her. 
Such good health had been hers all her life that she knew 
no alarm. And every night at that time, as head of the 
Relief Committee, she penned with her own hand, notes 
of thanks to every contributor—a courtesy so unusual 
and so greatly appreciated that in many cases it brought 
forth a further donation. 

Madame Sembrich has never done anything by halves. 
Throughout the whole world she is loved. Those who 
have not heard her in person have heard her on the 
victrola. Her voice is preserved, and her art—her mas- 
tery of music and of tone-production—lives on through 
her pupils. 

Again I say that no artist in retirement—save the im- 
mortal Liszt—has ever wielded so much of power and 
potency, coupled with love and devotion, as does the 
supreme Sembrich. 


COCA VEN aCe Lee 
“SEMIRAMIDE” 


LL great prima donnas have in their repertoire the 
majority of famous operas, but through fitness of 
physique or temperament or quality of voice they become 
associated with certain roles more than others. Some- 
times it is merely a caprice of the public that holds them 
to a particular line of operas. Madame Sembrich is re- 
garded as the great exponent of the old Italian school. 
Among her thirty-seven operas, “Semiramide”’ is one in 
which New Yorkers have not heard her; but it is in some 
respects the most typical of its kind. : 
““Semiramide”’ belongs to the old style of Italian operas. 
It is light in substance, but glistening with scales and 
cadenzas that are scattered over it like spangles upon 
tulle. Rossini’s music is always beautiful but conveys 
little depth of meaning, and it impresses the modern 
musical taste like a meal of bonbons. Altho Semiramis 
lived hundreds of years before the Christian era, we listen 
in vain for any ancient atmosphere to the composition or 
for the “melodrame tragico,’ as designated by the li- 
bretto. This music would be as suitable to the “Barber 
of Seville’ as to the “Queen of Babylon.” In other 
words, the old operas were a series of separate songs 
adapted to a connected story, whereas we now expect 
the score so thoroughly to embody the text that the two 
are inseparable. | 
“Semiramide,” however, bears several claims to dis- 
tinction that prevent the possibility of extinction. It is 
the opera par excellence of duets. They are the delight- 


402 


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“SEMIRAMIDE” 403 


ful, old-fashioned kind, wherein the two voices are side 
by side, only separated by a perfect third; and when the 
conductor has whipped up a good tempo away they go 
like a span of horses, over hills and valleys of scales and 
arpeggios, bridged-over intervals, and clumps of trills. 
Differing from all other operas, this one gives as much 
prominence to the contralto as to the soprano. They 
must have equal facility of execution; and, indeed, none 
of the roles are exempt from this demand. ‘Tenor, con- 
tralto, barytone, and bass vie with each other in perform- 
ing dangerous feats of vocal agility. There are passages 
where they all, one after another, run up a scale and 
land on a certain note, like athletes jumping from a 
spring-board. We smile at such display, and are inclined 
to regard the opera as one big solfeggio; but let it not 
be forgotten that this is the old Italian style, and interest- 
ing from this point of view. 

Another claim to lasting fame is its overture—one of 
the prettiest, happiest, showiest, orchestral compositions 
extant. It is a stock program piece, being simple enough 
for any orchestra to perform and yet rousing enough 
always to elicit applause. 

The opening scene represents a temple wherein Oroe, 
the chief of the Magi, is discovered kneeling before an 
altar. He has received a celestial revelation of some dark 
crime that is awaiting vengeance, and his first short 
recitative refers to this secret. Arising from his knees, 
Oroe orders the gates of the temple to be opened. The 
Assyrian multitude enter bearing offerings and garlands, 
while they sing a light melody that would do for a modern 
topical song. Jdrenus, an Indian prince, also comes in 
with his attendants, bearing incense and offerings. He 
is the tenor, but unimportant, because this opera has no 


404. OPERAVAND MUS So UARS 


love-scene, and consequently little use for a tenor. Assur, 
an Assyrian potentate, is another devout supplicant at 
the altar of Belus. We soon learn the occasion of these 
earnest efforts to propitiate the gods: Semiramis, the 
queen, will to-day select a successor to the late King 
Ninus. | 

A very good example of what we consider the incon- 
gruities of the old school is found in these first two 
arias of Idrenus and Assur. The tenor comes in alone and 
delivers a flourishing solo, ornate as his costume. Then 
Assur, the basso, makes his entrance and sings in a lower 
key the same remarkable pyrotechnics. This antagonizes 
the fundamental rule of modern opera, which requires 
each character to maintain a musical individuality. There 
is some further conversation in the form of a terzetto ° 
between Jdrenus, Assur, and Oroe, and the fact is dis- 
closed that Assur expects the queen’s choice to fall on 
him. 

Another light and bright chorus announces the entrance 
of Semiramis. She is represented as young and beautiful, 
altho she is a widow and the mother of a son who mys- 
teriously disappeared years before the story opens. But 
radiant as is her appearance, Semiranus opens the cere- 
monies with uneasiness, for she has determined to make 
Arsaces the future king. He is a young army officer, 
and there is no just reason why he should be favored; 
but the queen has become enamored of him. Arsaces, 
however, is unconscious of her infatuation. She has 
summoned him to this ceremony; but he has not yet 
arrived, and for this reason she hesitates. In a quartet 
that is worked up like a rondo upon a very pleasing theme, 
the others urge her to begin. She reluctantly steps for- 
ward, but at her first mention of the dead king there is 


“SEMIRAMIDE” 405 


a flash of lightning and the sacred fires are extinguished. 
The people regard this as a dire omen. Oroe glances 
knowingly at both Semiramis and Assur as he again 
refers to a crime that has aroused the wrath of the gods. 
He orders the ceremonies to be postponed pending the ar- 
rival of a sacred oracle from Memphis. The Queen and 
her attendants withdraw, and the temple is vacated. 

The orchestra plays through several pages of sixty- 
fourth and thirty-second notes, after which the interest- 
ing and important 4rsaces enters with two slaves who 
bring a casket. Arsaces is always a very youthful and 
impossible-looking general, in spite of his glittering 
cuirass, for be it known this is the contralto role, and, 
musically speaking, a very great one. 

We learn from his first recitative that this casket con- 
tains precious documents and relics of the late king 
which have been guarded and concealed by Phradates, 
the supposed father of Arsaces. Phradates has recently 
died, and in compliance with his request Arsaces brings 
these treasures to the high priest. We also learn that 
the young general is puzzled over the Queen’s summons; 
and last, but not least, we learn that he is in love with 
the beautiful Princess Azema. The mere mention of 
her name starts him singing a rapturous song, bubbling 
over with brilliant roulades. After presenting his casket 
to the high priest, Arsaces encounters Assur, who soon 
makes it known that he also loves the fair dzema. This 
so maddens Arsaces that he resolves at once to ask Semi- 
rams for the hand of the Princess. These rivals cordi- 
ally hate each other, but Rossini inspires them to sing 
the same melodies, and their voices mingle in beautiful 
harmony of tone and rhythm. 

The second rising of the curtain reveals Semiramis 


406 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


reclining under a bower in her palace garden. She is 
surrounded by maidens and slaves who sing languid, 
luxuriant melodies for her diversion. MRossini’s style is 
well suited to this scene. As the arias are presented one 
by one, it is like unfolding the contents of an Assyrian 
treasure-chest full of shimmering silks and glittering 
jewels. Among this collection there is one gem called 
the “Bel raggio,’ a name as famous in its way as the 
Koh-i-noor. This musical brilliant belongs to Queen 
Semiramis, who displays its scintillating beauty with 
evident pride. The ‘Bel raggio’” is one of the four great 
corner-stones of the bravura singer’s repertoire, of which 
the remaining three are: “Una voce poco fa,” also by 
Rossini; the Dinorah “Shadow Song,” and the “Lakmé” 
“Bell Song.”? When listening to “Bel raggio”’ one should 
never try to follow the words or even wonder what she 
is saying. Just listen to the music. Those radiant, ravish- 
ing, intoxicating warbles and runs tell one plainly enough 
that she is happy, and this is sufficient. 

Semiramis is awaiting Arsaces and the oracle from 
Memphis. The latter is received first, and bears the 
cheering words, “Thy peace shall be restored with the 
return of Arsaces.” True to the nature of oracles, this 
one has a double meaning, and Semiramis construes it in 
the wrong way. When Arsaces enters there follows a 
bevy of famous duets. But the conversation is quite at 
cross-purposes. <Arsaces tells of a long-cherished love, 
which Semiramis thinks is for herself. She promises 
that all his hopes shall be realized, whereupon the two 
wander off side by side through a forest of cadences, 
roulades and scales. They sometimes become separated, 
when the soprano pauses to run up the scale-ladder and 
pluck a brilliant high note, or the contralto lingers to pick 


te ee 


“SEMIRAMIDE” 407 


up tones that are rich and full as fallen fruit; but they 
finally emerge together, trilling high and low like birds 
from a thicket. 

The third scene represents a magnificent hall in the 
palace. There are, of course, a throne and other “prop- 
erties,’ but most conspicuous is the tomb or mausoleum 
of Ninus. For a second time the Assyrian nobleman 
and people gather to hear the appointment of a new 
king. As they sing a sweeping march, Semiramis enters 
more gorgeously arrayed than ever. She takes her 
place at the throne, and with an imperious gesture com- 
mands allegiance to the king of her choice. These regal 
phrases contain such a prodigality of dazzling colorature 
that we are reminded of the far-famed hanging gardens 
devised by this same extravagant Queen. In the matter 
of lavish display the music of “Semiramide” is strikingly 
appropriate. ‘Assur, Arsaces, Idrenus, and Oroe vow 
obedience, and their hymn-like ensemble is one of the 
grandest themes Rossini ever composed. Like the prayer 
from Weber’s “Freischitz,”’ this quintet has long held 
a place in church choir-books, and a more religious and 
inspiring melody could hardly be imagined. The soprano 
scatters delicious appoggiaturas and cadenzas above the 
steady and noble ensemble like flowers upon an altar. 
The “Semiramide Quintet” is another one of its claims 
to lasting fame. 

In a lighter vein is the Queen’s next proclamation, to 
the effect that the future king shall also be her husband. 
This arouses general surprize. But when she finally des- 
ignates Arsaces, the amazement on all sides is loud: Assur 
demands justice from the Queen, insinuating some secret 
compact that she dare not disregard. He is haughtily 


408 OPER RAAT DAT Dist HAS 


silenced by Semiramis, who at the same time bestows 
upon him the hand of fair Agema. 

Poor Arsaces is beside himself. He tries to explain, 
but the Queen will listen to no remonstrances. An altar 
is brought forward, and the priests are about to pro- 
nounce the marriage bans when a hollow, subterranean 
sound and distant thunder cause consternation. The 
people are horrified to behold the tomb of Ninus slowly 
open and its occupant step forth. Turning to Arsaces, 
the ghost bids him avenge a terrible crime: “With courage 
into my tomb descend; there to my ashes a victim thou 
shalt offer. But first obey the counsel of the priest.” 
The Ghost disappears, and the act closes with a strong 
chorus of dismay. Semiramis leads the singing, and for 
once her music has only prim quarter-notes and _ half- 
notes: her colorature is all frightened away . 

The next act contains an interview between Assur and 
Semiramis, wherein we learn about the crime so often 
referred to. The late King Ninus was poisoned by Assur, 
who had been promised the throne. But the guilty Queen 
has since preferred Arsaces, and this explains Assur’s 
great anger. He threatens to kill the young favorite; 
but Semiramis has resumed her ostentatious manner and 
music, and will not heed his words. 

There follows a scene in the Queen’s apartment. She 
is still striving to win Arsaces, but her overtures repel 
him more than ever. He has just returned from an inter- 
view with the priest. The contents of the casket have 
been revealed to him, and he shows Semiramis a paper 
proving the startling fact that Arsaces himself is her 
long-lost son. He has also learned that Ninus, his father, 
was murdered. Remorse promptly overtakes the Queen. 
She weeps and wails in chromatics and scales that quite 


ey he 
ee 


“SEMIRAMIDE” 409 


touch Arsaces. They sing a glorious duet that is like a 
benediction, so noble and pure are its harmonies. It is 
called “Giorno d’orrore” (day of horror). Arsaces bids 
his mother adieu. He is going to the tomb to avenge 
his father’s death, tho he knows-not how nor whom he 
shall strike. It rests with the gods to guide him; he only 
obeys the command. There follows another smoothly 
flowing duet resembling all the others in its simple struc- 
ture, unmistakable rhythm, and prominent melody. 

The finale of “Semiramide’ has little to commend it, 
being absurd in action and presenting only one pleasing 
or noticeable theme. This is a dainty, quaint violin 
passage that delighted us in the overture, but which we 
never thought of connecting with a tragic climax. How 
different is this tomb music from that of Gounod’s 
“Romeo and Juliet!’ There the marvelous harmonies 
are like sweet dreams accompanying the sleep of death, 
but here we are only conscious of the “deep, damp vault, 
the darkness and the worm.” 

The chief absurdity of this scene lies in the fact that 
it should be too dark for the characters to see each other 
and yet it must be light enough for the audience to see 
everything. Another incongruity is the assembling of 
all the principals and a good-sized chorus in this tomb 
where we expected Arsaces alone. But it is explained 
that Assur heard of the hero’s coming and planned to 
follow with the intention of killing him; Oroe heard of 
Assurs plan and brings an armed guard to protect 
Arsaces! and, finally, Semiramis follows because she is 
anxious about everybody and everything. 

They enter at different times; grope around among 
tombs, and pretend not to see each other. Arsaces finally 
hears and recognizes the voice of Assur. He has no doubt 


410 OPERA AND ITS STARS 


that the gods have sent Assur to be the victim. The hero 
promptly stabs in the direction of the voice, but because 
it is so very dark he happens to kill Semiramis instead 
of Assur. But this mistake does not much affect either 
the music or the action. The final chorus of the opera 
is as light and bright as the first. 





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